Care Bear Magi: The Gathering Saga
by Alexander-Crossover
Summary: Regina Arc: Love Heart arrives in Regina, where he will meet his first real friends, and face the challenge of relating to people of his own species and his own age.
1. Love Heart Arc, c1

Right off the bat, I would like to thank Shimmering Star/Eternal Dragon's Tear for helping me edit this story, helping me come up with the idea of the Great Wishing Star giving immortality to those who accept it. Also I want to credit him with helping me create the character of Marine Bear.

**Care Bear Magi: The Gathering Saga**

Chapter 1: A New Life to Live

Koran Terada sighed as he stared out the window, watching the light snowfall through the cold glass as he wondered what his purpose in life was. This was not a trivial matter, Koran Terada was 85 years old, his life was nearly over and he had lived a life of quiet desperation. Working jobs he could do to make ends meet was pretty much all he did and he had been able to save a substantial fortune, more than enough to support an average family for years. He lived on the bare essentials, living in a small retirement age apartment complex, never indulging in luxuries such as television or video games and eating healthily and the main reason he could live on so little was because he knew magic.

Koran was the last in a line of powerful mages stretching back almost a millennium and each of his predecessors had found someway of using their powers to benefit the world, albeit in special secret ways so that humanity at large would not know that magic was the cause, however in the 20th century it seemed as though people had found a piece of technology to do whatever it was they could, and it was nearly impossible to use all the magic he had learn in his life without someone discovering him using it, and Koran knew that most people would not see his powers as a gift but a danger. Koran had spent 80 years of his life so far learning and practicing magic but sadly had not found any use for all the magical knowledge he had memorized nor any purpose for his life.

It was while the old man stared out of his window that he made a decision, his life was nearly over and he wasn't going to waste away in this small apartment he lived in, he was going to use his last few years alive to try and find purpose in his life. He immediately, but slowly, began to pack up the few pieces of clothing he owned as well as a small number of books he still read into a large hiking pack he'd used when he was younger and took the staff, which was a long ask pole with a small iridescent blue orb on the top and left his apartment behind. At the front desk he left his keys and the building manager eyed him curiously.

"Mr. Terada, why are you leaving your keys here and where are you going?" she asked.

"I'm going to find my place in the world and I'm leaving the keys because I do not believe I shall be returning, ever," Koran explained, standing up quite well considering his old age.

"Sir, you do understand that you cannot leave, let alone terminate your residence here without the permission of those who applied you to this place so I'll ask you-"

"I applied and registered myself to this place 15 years ago, so I have my own permission to leave," Koran said, cutting her off. The building manager quickly pulled out Koran's file and checked, sighing when she saw he was correct, and he could leave at any time he wished.

"Very well, Mr. Terada, it was nice having you here, good luck and good day," she said.

"Thank you," Koran said as he exited the building, "I just hope I can find purpose through this." As the old mage left the building he carefully and discreetly cast a spell over a withering plant at the door causing a small amount of water to form and drop into the soil in the plant pot, he smiled as he left.

Koran's first stop was the bank to get all of his money withdrawn from his accounts and onto his person, there was no need to keep his retirement account open and he didn't want to deal with being unable to use cards to pay for items while he was abroad and after a few hours at the bank he left with his currency, some in his pockets but most of it in a package in his backpack.

As he set out, Koran used his staff as a walking staff and headed out, deciding to seek out his purpose on foot at first. Rather than trusting in a map or any compass, Koran decided to follow his instincts now that he was on his journey, hoping they would guide him to his true purpose. He was able to reach the city limits by the evening and, as the city he lived in was near a forest, decided to camp for the night among the trees. Koran pulled himself into a sleeping bag he had purchased before leaving the city and stared up at the sky, seeing a single yet very bright star shining down on him. Smiling, Koran recalled a rhyme he'd learned when he was younger.

"Star light, star bright

First star I see tonight

Wish I may, wish I might

Have this wish, I wish tonight."

As he finished the rhyme, Koran closed his eyes and said his wish aloud to himself, "Please, help me find my purpose in this world."

That night as he slept Koran was visited in his dreams by a series of strange visions. He saw a child of an odd color, he saw someone of an equally odd color tending too it. He saw magic, and even more images that he could not truly discern, as they went by so fast, then a voice he had never heard before spoke, "Awaken, Koran Terada!"

Koran awoke when it was still dark out to the sound of crying nearby. He carefully extricated himself from his sleeping bag and looked around. The sound was coming from nearby so he tracked it carefully until he reached a small patch of under growth where the crying was coming from and carefully pulled it aside to find a bear cub that was the source of the crying, but not an ordinary bear cub. The cub was male, lime green in color with a dark green heart shaped nose and most amazingly, it appeared almost human, having a body orientation that was suited to walking as a biped rather than a quadruped. Koran carefully leaned down and picked up the cub, which opened its eyes and slowly stopped bawling.

This cub was defiantly special, anyone could see that, and as Koran looked around and noticed the blood and other evidence surrounding where the cub had been lying, he knew this cub was orphaned. The lime green cub was asleep now and as Koran looked down at it nestled in his arms he had an epiphany. There had to be more cubs like this, abandoned or left after their parents died or were killed, if he could find them perhaps he could live long enough to care for them and allow them to live on their own. He returned to where he had left his supplies and carefully wrapped the cub in a spare towel he had brought with him before lying down to sleep himself.

Koran awoke to the sound of the cub's crying. He carefully moved his old bones out of the sleeping bag before going to his provisions and removing some carrots. The old man then cast a spell and in a few moments, the carrots have been reduced to a mush which Koran scooped up in a small container and carefully fed to the cub. The green bear cub stopped crying once it had eaten and Koran smiled, he may have been old, ancient in fact, but he could still manage to do this.

Not wanting to strain himself, Koran used his magic to levitate the cub and make it invisible and inaudible to everyone but himself. The cub seemed to like this and giggled happily as it was levitated along behind Koran. Koran suspected that there might be others like this cub in the world but in reality he wasn't sure he had the strength to undertake an adventure around the world to find all of them. Even with magic to aid him he was too old to be able to endure such a trip, and after he had found a purpose for his life he wasn't about to throw it all away.

A few days later, Koran finally found somewhere where they would be able to live. It was in a fairly remote part of Canada in the Boreal Forest. It was on a plateau that had a waterfall on one side near a small town that was quite friendly but Koran decided not to settle in the actual town, deciding that it would be better if he kept the strange cub a secret. Instead he found a small raised bit of land and, with the use of his magic, he carved a cave out of the rock and carefully molded it into a place where he and the cub could live. Once he had shaped the cave deep enough to contain a place for both of them to sleep, a place to store their belongings, and two beds, which he put moss on top of to make them soft enough to be comfortable to sleep on; one of them he made into a makeshift crib he could put the cub in without risking him climbing out and crawling away.

When all was said and done, Koran conjured orbs of light that hovered above himself and the cub as he set it down in the rock crib he had created for him. Koran sat down on his bed and watched the cub rolling around in its bed before it too stared back at the old man.

"Now we have a home," he said to the cub, "But now I supposed you need a name, hmm what should I call you?" he asked. He didn't expect a response but the cub just babbled as if in reply. Koran thought for a minute then yawned, "Perhaps I will think of a name for you in the morning, I need to sleep." Koran lay down to sleep exhausted from the recent events. As he drifted off to sleep he sighed internally. He had found a purpose in his life but now it was almost too late. He only had a few years left and the cub was still an infant, before long, Koran would be dead and the cub would be alone and barely old enough to survive on its own, it was heartbreaking but he had to do what he could with the time he had left.

That night, as Koran slept, he dreamed, but it was no ordinary dream, it was a vision and in the vision he saw a great celestial being before him. It was a five pointed star with a wizened face upon its front; it had a soft gentle voice that seemed to reassure any listener that anything would be all right.

"Koran Terada, I See you have at last found your purpose in this world," it said.

"Yes, I did," Koran recognized the voice, "was it you who guided me to find this strange bear cub now under my care?" he asked.

"Yes, it was me. I am the Great Wishing Star and that cub is a member of the Care Bear Family. He is destined to grow up to help the world and its inhabitants, however there is more that he will need to know as there are dark clouds on the horizon."

"What more will he need?" Koran asked.

"He will need to know how to fight, and defend himself, and most importantly heh will need to know how to use magic," the star explained, "and he is not the only one, in times there will be others, other who must be able to fight to protect themselves and this world from a great threat that is growing and will one day be upon them."

"Why are you telling me this? I am old and my life will be over in a few years, too soon to train him," Koran's eyes began to tear up as he thought of the cub, who would barely be old enough to understand what happened when Koran passed away in a few years.

"I see you have a good heart, a rarity in humans these days. They reason I am telling you these things is because I am here to offer you something, a chance to continue to raise him."

Koran was in complete disbelief, "How is that possible?" he asked.

"It is simple, the cub's life is indefinite, a trait I imposed on the Care Bear Family so they would be able to help the world for as long as was needed, I am offering the same gift to you. If you accept then your old life will be over and you will being anew so you can raise and train him when the time is right. Do you accept?" the Star asked.

"Yes, yes I accept," Koran said without hesitation.

"Very well," the star began to glow.

The cub stirred and yawned, opening its eyes when a bright glow filled the room. It sat up and looked over at where the light was coming from, from the man who had bee looking after him. The cub couldn't make out what was happening but it knew, somehow, that this was important. The light was warm, like a gentle blanket of kind feelings and the cub soon fell asleep again.

When morning came, Koran felt strange. He recalled the dream last night clearly and wondered what the Great Wishing Star meant. Whatever had happened he certainly felt better than he had in years, he didn't ache, he had no trouble breathing, in fact he found sitting up and getting out of bed much easier than he had for all the time he lived in the retirement complex. He stood up and stretched then noticed something, he was shorter, not by much maybe a foot and half shorter than he had been when he went to sleep the previous night; he also felt, fuzzy? He couldn't really tell. After checking on the xub to make sure it was still asleep he left their cave dwelling and went to the nearby river, leaving his clothes behind in the cave. When he got to the water, he stared down at his reflection in amazement. He was a bear!

He looked much like the cub sleeping back in the cave right down to the white tummy, heart shaped pads on the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet, and the heart shaped tip of his nose, which he touched just to make sure he was real; the only real difference between him and the cub, other than age, was that his fur was iridescent blue rather than lime green. He turned around and looked over his shoulder to check and sure enough, he also had a little red heart mark on his rear.

After bathing, Koran got out and, using some wind magic, dried off and found that even his magic felt stronger. He stretched and noted that he felt years younger, if he had to guess he was in his late 30s or early 40s, and from what the Star had told him, that was how old he'd be, physically, for the rest of his life.

Koran returned to the cave and dressed, surprised to find that his clothing had shrunk with him and still fit. It was a bit itchier than he remembered but it was far from intolerable. It was then that he recalled what the Great Wishing Star had said in the moment before he had awakened.

"_It is done, you are no longer Koran Terada, your new name is Sage Heart Bear, speak your name to receive your symbol."_

"Sage Heart Bear," the iridescent blue bear said. As soon as he said those words the white part of his tummy began to glow and when the glow subsided he saw that it had left a symbol in its place, a heart formed out of rainbow colored dust. As he ran his hands over it he found it was both part of the fur and even on the skin underneath.

"This symbol," Sage Heart said, "so my name is Sage Heart Bear now, I like the sound of that." By now the cub had woken up and it was staring at Sage Heart as if in a trance. Sage Heart walked over to the cub's crib and lifted it out into his arms.

"Now what about you, what should your name be?" Sage Heart asked, the cub just looked at him then snuggled close to the older bear's chest, "You certainly are a loving little boy, hmm," Sage Heart pondered this for a moment then said, "Then that settles it, your name is Love Heart Bear. Now how to get you a symbol." Sage Heart closed his eyes and felt down, he could feel a strange warmth inside himself, from where the symbol was, he concentrated on this new feeling and found himself imagining the cub with its own symbol. As he thought this, his tummy symbol glowed and fired a beam up and around to land on the cub's tummy. A moment later the glow subsided and the cub had it's own symbol, a large red heart with three smaller pink hearts diagonally aligned inside with a dozen tiny red hearts closely surrounding the large one.

"Well would you look at that, this symbol of mine is more than decoration," he smiled down at the cub who just stared back up at him, "Thank you, Love Heart Bear," he said softly, "Thank you for giving me a purpose in my life.

I would like to thank my friend Shimmering Star for helping me develop ideas for this story, notably immortality being something bestowed on people by the Great Wishing Star, and for helping me to edit this story.


	2. Love Heart Arc, c2

Chapter 2: Growing and Training

Sage Heart inevitably spent his next few years raising Love Heart and doing what any father would, teaching him to walk, speak, and eventually to read and write. As he did this, Sage Heart began to visit the nearby town slowly allowing the townsfolk to get used to him and even Love Heart, whom initially carried in a baby backpack, then pushed in him in a stroller, then began to let him walk once the young bear was old enough. Eventually the townsfolk accepted the two, getting used to the idea of the two strange bears that lived outside of town and came to buy supplies, even getting to know both of them on a first name basis.

Once day at their cave home, Sage Heart was helping Love Heart get dressed and found that his clothes just didn't fit. After helping Love Heart remove the clothes he had he said.

"Well that settles it, you need new clothes and this time we need to get ones that are made for your size."

"Aww dad, do I have to?" the five-year-old Love Heart said, "I don't mind going without clothes and I don't really need them do I?" he asked, hopefully.

Sage Heart couldn't help but chuckle and shake his head, "I see your point, Love Heart, our fur does pretty much conceal anything humans would find inappropriate but not all humans are comfortable with us going bare furred as it were. It's fine here if you want but you can't live in the woods forever, now let's go," he took Love Heart's hand, "we need to go shopping for new clothes. Love Heart resisted Sage Heart pulling him along and eventually struggled out of his adopted father's grip and turned to flee back into the cave. Love Heart barely made it ten steps before Sage Heart turned and with careful hand movement, used a gust of wind to pick Love Heart up and pull him back to his side, dropping him on his back.

Love Heart sat up, astounded, "How did you do that?" he asked, surprised and impressed.

Sage Heart was at first perplexed by the question, until he remembered that for the last five years he had avoided using magic as much as he did when he had been human, instead enjoying and putting to use the regained youthful vigor and strength he had now that he was a "Care Bear" as the Great Wishing Star had put it; this was the first time he had really used magic so overtly in front of Love Heart.

"Well, that was magic, Love Heart, something I've been learning and perfecting over several decades," the older bear explained.

"Wow!" Love Heart was in awe, looking at Sage Heart in a new light as he stood up to look at his dada as close to his face as he could, "Can you teach me how to do that."

It was then that Sage Heart recalled what the Great Wishing Star had told him. He had been so happy to just live out his life with his son Love Heart that the idea of training him to use magic magic, not to mention training him to fight, so rarely crossed his mind. He smiled and took his son's hand, "Yes, I can teach you and train you in magic, but I might not be able to teach you that trick, at least not right away, we'll start tonight as long as you don't tell anyone in town about it."

"I promise, cross my heart and hope to die!" Love Heart said enthusiastically, drawing a cross over where he guessed his heart was in his chest.

"Where did you learn that expression?" Sage Heart asked as they began to walk to town.

"I heard it from some kids in the park, last week, when you took me there," Love Heart replied, hurrying to keep up with his dad's longer steps, "I heard someone say that when they were making a promise to the other."

Sage Heart smiled and ruffled his son's head fur, "Well it's certainly a nice sentiment, thank you."

In town, people gave Love Heart a few strange looks, as he was essentially naked. Granted as the two bears had said earlier it wasn't really a problem as Love Heart's fur hid anything that would have been objectionable, not to mention that it was a rather hot summer's day and some of the bystanders commented that they could understand why he would not want to wear clothing if he had fur already.

The clothing store owner was a fairly young man dressed in well-fitting clothes who knew Sage Heart and Love Heart quite well and looked up to greet them when they entered. "Good morning, Sage Heart, and little Love Heart, my you're growing," he said, "I guess that's why you're here and why you're not dressed yet."

"That is correct, Mr. Daniels," Sage Heart replied, "I think it's time for Love Heart to start getting fitted for his clothes instead of just getting generic baby and children's clothes."

"Well then," Mr. Daniels stepped out from behind the counter, taking out a tape measure as he did so, "come over here, Love Heart, and I'll take your measurements."

Love Heart looked to Sage Heart, who nodded and pushed his son forwards. Mr. Daniels nodded then said, "Now please stay still unless I move your body parts for you, I need to get accurate measurements." Love Heart froze still as Mr. Daniels measured his waist, legs, arms, and neck, writing down each measurement as he did so. Love Heart tried to stand still but he couldn't help but laugh when the measure tickled him.

"All right, that just about does it," Mr. Daniels said, "Now I just need to measure your tail's circumference, I can put holes in the back of your pants so it will poke through instead of being pressed against you uncomfortably." The store owner bent down and took the needed measurement; it took all of Love Heart's self control to keep from squirming away but he managed to hold fast until Mr. Daniels was done at which point he couldn't contain his laughter anymore.

Mr. Daniels just smiled as ht checked for some clothes that fit Love Heart's measurements, "Ahh, makes me wish I had kids of my own."

"I have no doubt that you will someday," Sage Heart said, "So find anything for my son?"

"Just give me a few minutes and I'll have some things for him to try on," the store owner said, "Once we have some clothes you like I'll have to do some small modifications to give you holes for your tail to poke through."

A few minutes later Mr. Daniels had returned with a small pile of clothing which he and Sage Heart helped Love Heart try on. Love Heart squirmed and struggled a bit, insisting on dressing himself most of the time, and eventually he managed to pick several sets of clothing he liked.

Mr. Daniels nodded and gathered up the clothing, "All right, just give me an hour or two and I'll have the pant and undergarments ready, just go have lunch or something and I'll be done."

"All right, I know some places that don't mind if Love Heart is just in fur when he's eating there," Sage Heart said, "Come on, Love Heart, let's go."

"All right," Love Heart said, following Sage Heart out of the store.

The outdoor café in question was only a short distance away and once Sage Heart and Love Heart had placed their orders Love Heart asked, eagerly, "When can I learn how to do magic, dad?"

Sage Heart chuckled, "It's not as simple as you might think, Love Heart, we'll have to wait until we get back home, most people don't understand let along trust magic and may think ill of me if I start using it in town so I will have to teach you elsewhere. If you are really ready I'll start with your first lesson tonight, it will be long and hard, I won't be able to just show you how to perform feats like the one I showed you earlier, it will take time, years of practice and training," Sage Heart watched as his son's face fell, Love Heart was always eager to learn things but often didn't like the fact that it took a long time to learn the things he really was interested in. However Sage Heart wasn't about to let him give up, "Cheer up, my son, it will be fun, I promise, and if you stick with it you may even surpass me one day."

"All right," Love Heart said sighing, just as their food arrived. As they ate, Sage Heart went over in his mind how he'd go about training Love Heart. He'd have to start with the basics especially since Love Heart was only five years old, a younger age than even Sage Heart had been when he started, back when he was human. Well he'd have to work around that, the Great Wishing Star said that Love Heart would have to know magic for something important so the sooner they started the better.

That night, Sage Heart built a fire pit outside the cave while Love Heart watched a bit confused. When Sage Heart finished, he looked over at Love Heart, who said.

"Dad, what are you doing, I thought you were going to teach me magic," in a bored and somewhat whiny voice.

"I am, but I can't just teach you, you have to understand how magic works, and to know that you need to know how life works, and to know life functions I need to start with something similar and easier to understand," Sage Heart explained. HE smiled when he saw Love Heart's confused look but continued bu asking, "So, my son, what do you know about fire?"

"Umm," Love Heart wasn't sure what Sage Heart wanted to hear so he just said, "It's hot and burns you?"

Sage Heart chuckled, "Yes, but I mean how it works." Without waiting for a reply, Sage Heart continued to explain, "Fire is composed of three interdependent parts, oxygen, fuel, and heat. Oxygen is all around us and so acts as the way for fire to breathe. Fuel is whatever the fire burns on or consumes, in this case the wood here in the fire pit. AS for heat," Sage Heart held up one hand and created a small fireball, "heat can come form any source but it needs to be intense enough to start a fire that burns continuously," with that last word, he shot he hand down and the fireball hit the pit, instantly starting a small fire. Love Heart sat astounded, trying to absorb all of this new information.

"In order to extinguish fire, you need to remove one of the three components, which causes the fire to be extinguished," Sage Heart continued, "The fuel usually burns itself out after a while, but the most common method," at this point he held out the palm of his hand and formed a small sphere of water, "is to remove the heat and oxygen by covering the fire in water," he tossed the water onto the fire and promptly extinguished it. Love Heart watched as his father used wind magic to dry off the wood then set it alight again. "Do you understand, Love Heart?" the iridescent blue bear asked.

"I think so," Love Heart said. He had the basic points down and said so aloud, "Fire's made up of three parts and if even one is taken away the fire go out."

"Exactly," Sage Heart smiled, happy that his adopted son understood so quickly.

"But what does this have to do with magic?" Love Heart asked, confused once again.

Sage Heart smiled, he had anticipated this question, it was the very same thing he had asked so many decades ago when his father and mother had started teaching him magic in exactly the same way. "Quite simply, you need to understand something that is similar to how magic works. You see magic comes from part of life, and like fire life is made up of three parts and cannot persist if even one of those parts is missing." Sage Heart raised his hands upwards as he explained, "Life consists of three interdependent parts just like fire but in this case the parts are the body, the physical entity that we exist in; the spirit, or soul, which is our thoughts and personality and, essentially is who we are and governs how we act; and lastly, mana, the mystical energy that is often referred to as life force. Mana is the energy that makes life possible, without it things cannot live and every living thing, plants, animals, and even people posses it, and mana is also the fuel for magic. In order to be able to cast magic you have to build up your personal reserves of mana so you can cast effectively."

"OK," again Love Heart had to absorb all the knowledge, it was a lot to take in but he understood, life had three parts like fire and simply faded if one of the three parts was missing. "So how do I get more mana?" the young green bear asked.

"Well you have to exercise it, like any muscle, you need to conjure and deplete the excess mana that you and all sentient beings possess and hen when you sleep and eat I it will be renewed and increase as you exercise those limits. Now listen to what I say and watch what I do," Sage Heart held his hands forwards with his palms facing upwards and his elbows at his sides. "Reach down inside and feel the energy within your body, go on try it."

Love Heart nodded and closed his eyes, feeling within himself. There, he felt it, a potent energy within himself, "I feel it!" he said, excitedly.

"Good, now focus, focus on letting that energy out into the world," as Sage Heart spoke, he did just that and s shimmering cloud of rainbow colored energy appeared above his hands.

Love Heart followed suit, and a smaller cloud of the same type appeared above his hands. He opened his eyes and marveled at the substance, "It's incredible," he said in awe.

"Yes it is," Sage Heart said, letting his cloud of mana disperse, "Now you need to keep channeling that until you get tired, then you will have used all of your excess mana and you will no doubt feel sleepy, so feel free to go to sleep when you reach that point."

Love Heart nodded, concentrating on keeping the mana flowing from the palms of his hands. Normally he would be too impatient to keep this up, but it was simple and more importantly it would let him use magic, in time, and that was something he wanted to learn above anything.

About half an hour later, Love Heart could no longer keep up the flow of mana and felt his eyes drooping. He stopped calling forth mana and stood up. He was a little wobbly on his legs and almost fell over, until Sage Heart caught him.

"I'm impressed, son," the older bear said, "most people can't keep up the mana conjuration for more than a few minutes but you managed to keep it up for about thirty, and you didn't back out." In truth, Sage Heart had expected some complaints or at least a couple words of protest during the mana growing process but Love Heart had done it silently.

"I really want to learn magic," Love Heart said earnestly, "How long do I have to keep doing the mana exercise thing?" he asked.

"Oh, about seven or eight years," Sage Heart said, smiling cheerfully

Love Heart's face turned into mixture of shock and horror, "7 YEARS?"


	3. Love Heart Arc, c3

Chapter 3: Electrifying

Five years had passed since Love Heart began his training, and despite his protests to how dull it was, he had kept up the mana building exercises all that time. Sage Heart was very proud at his son's efforts, and moreover was amazed at how fast he seemed to be building up his mana reserves. Now that Love Heart was ten years old, Sage Heart decided to see if he was ready for the next step.

At noon one day, while they had just finished eating their lunch, Sage Heart asked, "So Love Heart, how long can you keep generating Mana now?"

"Well, I really don't know," Love Heart said, "I started at noon yesterday and I Was getting tired by the time the sun went down, but I could have kept going."

Sage Heart whistled in amazement, "Over eight hours after only five years, it took me over seven years to get as far as your did and I wasn't able to even start until I was eight. Well then, since that's the case we should move onto the next step, your element."

"Cool!" Love Heart was clearly excited, "What element are you going to teach me, fire? earth?"

"Patience," Sage Heart said, reaching down to a small pouch he had at his side and produced an orb about the size of a softball that appeared to be made of glass with a small silver ball floating in the center, "this is an elemental sensor orb, it will show you what element you're best suited too," he tossed the orb to Love Heart who caught it.

"You mean I can't decide?" Love Heart asked, a little disappointed.

"Well, yes you could decide, but unless you start with the element best attuned to you then it will be harder and take much longer," Sage Heart explained, "now hold the orb in both hands and concentrate on it, conjure mana inside of it and the mana will take on a form that shows what element you're best suited for."

Love Heart nodded, "All right," he said, deciding to just go along with his father's idea and conjured his mana inside the orb. A moment passed then the orb suddenly became alight with electricity emanating from the small silver ball at the center. Love Heart stared in awe at the orb in his hands.

"Well I see that your element is lightning and electricity," Sage Heart said, sanding up and taking the orb from Love Heart.

The ten year old green bear was by no means disappointed, electricity was an element he liked, "All right!" he said, jumping for joy, "So how do I begin."

"Well, first," Sage Heart said as he stowed the orb away again, "You need to be able to generate lightning on your own. We'd better do this inside so there's less of a risk of you being seen." Sage Heart grabbed his pouch and led his ten-year-old son inside the cave where they lived. Once inside Sage Heart began to instruct Love Heart on how to conjure lightning and Love Heart soon found that channeling mana and actually changing it into a different form were vastly different.

It took the lime green bear about two hours to conjure a tiny thin pale blue bolt of lightning, which danced between his hands weakly. Love Heart was mentally exhausted from the effort, "That was harder than I thought," he commented, breathing hard as he maintained the tiny bolt of lightning.

"Creating an element is hard, but like with conjuring mana it just takes practice," Sage Heart assured him, "You'll need to keep it up but also you'll have to experiment."

"Experiment? What do you mean?" Love Heart asked, curious.

"Well just conjuring your element isn't enough," Sage Heart held up his hand a formed his own mana into earth, creating a small rock in his hand, "you need to do things with it, hurl it at a target," he flung his arm out and the rock struck the cave wall, "or in some cases even use the element as it exists in the world around you by discharging mana into it in order to make it more malleable," as he said this he aimed his hand at the cave wall and after a moment, pulled a small chunk of earth out of it, "though for you the margin for error you'd need to absorb natural lightning it too slim and I wouldn't risk it, even I haven't tried to do that, you might be able to control electricity from electronic devices if you try hard enough."

"OK, I understand," Love Heart said, nodding, while still straining to keep the lightning bolt conjured.

"Don't exhaust yourself, Love Heart," Sage Heart cautioned, "You've progressed fast but you still need to take your time or you might not be able to learn this properly."

Love Heart nodded and finally let the small bolt he had conjured dissipate and sat down, exhausted. Sage Heart smiled and ruffled his headfur, "You'll get better, trust me son."

"If you say so dad," Love Heart said, yawning. Sage Heart just smiled and helped Love Heart into bed.

To his credit, Love Heart kept up his practice quite well, getting better with his electrical magic each day until finally he was able to create bolts of lightning. However after he almost started several forest fires, that Sage Heart thankfully snuffed quickly, it was obvious that Love Heart was having trouble with aim. After one particularly hazardous training session, the younger bear asked his father why he was having such difficulty with his element, which Sage Heart explained.

"You see, Love Heart, the reason you are having such trouble is because your element is one of control. You exhibit remarkable self control and skill, as well as decisiveness, it's those qualities that make lightning your element, as it is the element of quick decisiveness, but without control it is random and chaotic."

Sage Heart held up a hand to forestall the question he knew was coming and continued unabated, "Lightning always follows the path of least resistance, the air that hinders it less than any other so its trajectory is random and erratic, as is evidenced by its jagged shape. To truly master lightning you must be able to control and force the electricity where you want it to go, not where it wants to go."

"How do I do that?" Love Heart asked, curious and eager.

"Through your willpower, here let me show you," Sage Heart too up and faced the target that Love Heart had yet to strike deliberately with his magic. It was a stone with an archer's target rings on it. Sage Heart held his right hand out and concentrated, generating a small pulse of lightning in his hand and explained, "You need to picture your target clearly in your mind, and focus on it. Sense the charge of the air around you." Love Heart closed his eyes as Sage Heart spoke and began to reach out, using a sense he had gained with his developing magic to feel the positive and negative charges int eh air around him as Sage Heart continued to speak, "You will not be able to force the lightning to fly straight at the target, it will always try to follow the path of least resistance, but you need to force it to go where you want it, force it to follow a path of greater resistance, or, if you can, change the path you want it to follow into the path of least resistance but changing the charge in the air. Once you feel you have the control, release!" Sage Heart shot the bolt of lightning he had been holding, which flew in its jagged shape but still struck the target in the center, leaving a black burn mark.

Love Heart opened his eyes just in time to see the bolt and was amazed, "Wow, you can guide lightning!" he said. "Can I try?"

"Of course, but be careful and take your time," Sage Heart cautioned as Love Heart stood up to try it himself while Sage Heart sat down to observe, and prepare to put out any fire Love Heart might accidentally start. The lime green bear drew he arm back and carefully began charging a bolt of lightning. He closed his eyes, picturing the target in his mind and concentrating on guiding the bolt he was forming. After about ten seconds he shot his arm forwards, releasing the yellow bolt of lightning. It streaked on an erratic path compared to Sage Heart's bolt but struck the target, not in the middle but on the edge. Love Heart opened his eyes and saw the scorch mark, smiling triumphantly.

"Well done," Sage Heart said, "A bit off, but you'll get it in time." The iridescent blue bear stood up from where he had been sitting and stretched, "I think that's enough training for the day. What do you say we go into town and just relax for the rest of the day?"

"Sounds good to me!" Love Heart said, enthusiastically, "I could use a day off."

The two bears headed into town, both enjoying their day off. Both of them were still well known in town, as they still got all their supplies and food from there. The first place they went was the Arcade, a place that Love Heart loved to spend his time and that Sage Heart was discovering he found fun as well, albeit he preferred the games that were less about reflex testing and more about careful execution, however few and far between those games were. Once he had his tokens, Love Heart found one of the scrolling shooter games he loved so much, plugged a couple tokens into the slot and started playing. His father smiled at him and went over to a trivia game, the only one he'd ever seen in an arcade, and began to play. He hadn't played the game enough to know all the answers and he still found it fun, he'd move on to one of the complex careful aiming target games later but for now, trivia.

An hour later, Sage Heart had gotten tired of the few games he enjoyed and had gone to sit down and read at one of the benches near the door. Love Heart was still playing his games, now having switched to a rail shooter he enjoyed.

Eventually Love Heart ran out of tokens but was now wound up from the game, he was still only tend years old and he didn't have much of an outlet for his physical energy, especially now that he wasn't getting so tired form using magic, so he dashed out the open door of the arcade, not even bothering to check with Sage Heart, to find something to do. Sage Heart sensed his son leaving, and looked up, sighing and getting up to follow him.

Love Heart was in a tizzy, too excited and wound up to figure out where he was going, as a result he ended up running down an alley and slammed into something, knocking him onto his back. The lime green bear shook his head, a bit stunned and looked up to see that he had run into a large, teenage boy who looked rough and mean, and was flanked by three other boys about his age and build. The one that Love Heart had run into sneered down at the bear and said, in a voice that showed complete contempt and disdain.

"Well lookie here, one of those walking stuffed animals that these people are so gaga for, and he just knocked right into me without even saying sorry."

"Yeah, should we teach him a lesson?" one of the men asked, pulling out a switchblade and moving menacingly towards Love Heart. Stuck without anything else to do, Love Heart began to concentrate, beginning to charge a bolt of lightning in his right hand, ready to launch it as soon as he could.

"I would advise against that," the voice came from Sage Heart Bear, who was standing at the entrance to the alley and facing down the gang. While he was telling the gang to not hurt his son, Love Heart also recognized that he was telling him not to use magic. Sage Heart had told him to be careful using magic around humans because they often feared things they didn't understand, and while they could handle the two of them looking like walking stuffed animals, since apparently it was "cute", the ability to create and throw lightning around would probably cause a panic.

One of the other gang members pulled out a chain and asked, with an irritable smugness, "Oh really, old man, what are you gonna do about it?"

"I'm going to teach you a lesson," Sage Heart said, walking towards them and picking up a moderately long and thin wooden board, about the length of a short broom handle that was leaning against the alley wall and holding it like a sword.

"Are you serious man?" the last gang member asked, wielding a bit of pipe in his hand, "You're going down!" he charged at Sage Heart and swung at his head. but Sage Heart swung upwards and, to the surprise of everyone, struck the pipe with his board and sent the pipe flying into the wall while the board wasn't even dented. The man who previously had been holding the pipe backed off while the man with the switch blade leapt forwards, trying to stab Sage Heart, but Sage Heart merely blocked the knife blade, which pinged off as though it were striking metal instead of sticking, before striking the boy in the gut, causing him to keel over in pain.

Sage Heart stepped back, allowing him to keel forwards, before asking in a somewhat bemused voice, "Is there anything else you'd like to try now?"

The four boys took off without a second glance, too freaked out to even shout in retreat. Sage Heart just shook his head and rolled his eyes, "Hopefully they won't try that again, are you alright Love Heart?" he asked, tossing the board aside and helping his son to his feet.

Love Heart finally snapped out of the stunned stupor he'd been in since Sage Heart struck the pipe with his board and asked, in disbelief, "How did you do that? That was just a flimsy piece of wood, why didn't it break? Was it magic?"

Sage Heart smiled, "Yes, it was magic, I'll explain while we go find something to eat." The older bear took his son's hand and led him out of the alley then towards a fast food restaurant that he felt they could afford to eat at for once as he continued. "AS I've said before, magic is divided into different types, some call them aspects others refer to them as just types. I personally prefer to call them elements. The element I just employed was a fairly esoteric one."

"Esoteric?" Love Heart asked, confused as he had never heard that word before.

"Esoteric, it means something that is fairly obscure or known only by a small number of people," Sage Heart explained before going back to the original topic, "The element I used was strength. It is unlike other elements because it does not involve manifesting and using the element in any overt fashion, no, strength magic involves reinforcing or weakening yourself or other objects by manipulating their basic forms. What I did a moment ago was to use strength magic to increase the durability and rigidity of that piece of wood to the same as a piece of metal. Strength magic is mainly used by people to make themselves stronger or more durable, but more advanced mages can make other objects stronger or weaker to aid them in combat."

"Umm OK," Love Heart wasn't quite sure he understood but then again, magic was confusing at times.

Sage Heart just smiled as they entered the fast food restaurant, "Don't worry, you'll understand it all someday, just give it time, Love Heart."

The two bears ordered, got their food, and sat down to eat. It wasn't healthy by any stretch of the word, burgers with what might have been meat and fries that were so deep fried they might as well as just been grease sticks, but it was tasty and they almost never ate this stuff so it was alright for now.

"So, Love Heart," Sage Heart said, "I saw you were about to use magic on that man, I know he was dangerous but you need to be careful about that."

"I know, you said if anyone saw me using magic they probably wouldn't trust me," Love Heart said, in a tone that showed he'd heard this before, "but what am I supposed to do if I have to fight when you're not around and I need to fight someone?"

"Well, I don't think you should resort to violence, but…" Sage Heart thought about this for a moment then said, "Well, I do know some forms of non-magical combat, I could teach you how to fight if you want."

"Really?" Love Heart was excited by this idea.

"Of course, why wouldn't I," Sage Heart smiled before taking a drink from his pop cup, "We can start tomorrow, and you can decide what kind of combat you want to learn." Love Heart nodded eagerly and wolfed down the rest of his food. Sage Heart just rolled his eyes and finished fast enough so that his son wouldn't get impatient.

Later, back at their cave home, Sage Heart sat down and asked Love Heart what kind of weapon he'd like to learn to use.

Love Heart's response was immediate, "A sword!"

"I should have guessed, well I can't get you a real one right now, buy we can practice with a couple heavy sticks, go and find one that feels right for you and meet me back here shortly."

"Yes dad!" Love Heart took off to find a heavy stick he could use. Sage Heart smiled and shook his head before going off to look for his own practice sword.\

Love Heart searched around for a while, trying out several pieces of wood. Each one was either: too light, too heavy, or too flimsy for him to use properly. Eventually he found a rather long branch that he had some difficulty in hefting in one hand, mainly because of it's length, but with both hands he found he could wield it quite well. Satisfied he carried the branch on his shoulder back to his home.

Sage Heart was waiting for Love Heart when he returned, having used his magic to shape the branch he found into something that he could use easily.

"Dad, here!" Love Heart called as he dashed up, Sage Heart nodded and smiled as Love Heart presented the branch to him.

"It's a little big, want me to pair it down for you?" he asked.

Love Heart shook his head, "No, I want to use it how it is."

"If you insist," Sage Heart said, "Just a moment," he rubbed his hands along the base of the branch, using his magic to make a handle Love Heart would have an easier time getting a grip on, then handed it back to Love Heart, "There, now you'll be able to hang onto it more easily."

Love Heart took a few swings with the branch, losing his balance and falling over before picking himself up, "Thanks," he said, smiling despite his fall.

"You're welcome," Sage Heart picked up his branch, "Now then, let's begin your sword-fighting lessons." Love Heart nodded as they began.


	4. Love Heart Arc, c4

Chapter 4: Falldown

While Love Heart kept up his magical training he also kept training with his practice sword, and he really showed a talent with both. His magical training got a lot easier once the green bear turned 13, and Sage Heart took time out of the training to teach Love Heart some of the facts of life, which also included the fact that magical energy increased more rapidly at the same time that his body was growing more rapidly. Love Heart kept training as hard as he could because he wanted to show how good he was getting both sword fighting and with his electrical magic.

However inevitably during the winter, as had happened every year, Love Heart found himself sleeping a lot during the winter even now that he was 15 years old as living in a cave and being a bear meant he often felt like hibernating during the winter months. Love Heart had hibernated completely until he was three, after which Sage Heart began to keep waking him up at regular intervals both to keep up his training as if he was ever to join the rest of the world. Love Heart could not sleep for an entire season, but despite this he still slept for inordinately long periods of time, usually no more than two days in a row but sometimes as much as a week if he was really tired, but this was because there was so little to do. Sure he still trained both in sword fighting and magic but it was cold and that meant he got tired more quickly and had to rest or even sleep more, especially since the sword training was exhausting him much more rapidly than his magic training was these days.

It was during his 15th winter raising Love Heart, that Sage Heart decided to undertake some important projects. Love Heart was sleeping just as much as the previous year which gave his dad more free time, which he put to good use.

One night, Love Heart was awakened by a series of loud metallic bangs from another part of the cave that Sage Heart had added that autumn; he could see a red glow coming from down the cavern. Shivering from the cold, Love Heart just pulled himself further into the heavy down sleeping bag he had been using every winter in order to muffle the sound. He wanted to check what his dad was working on but every time he had asked while he was awake, Sage Heart just said it was a surprise, and besides, he was too tired to want to get up and investigate.

Eventually, winter came to an end, and Love Heart ended his periods of extended sleep. Despite winter having ended, Sage Heart was still occupied a lot of the time and so he encouraged Love Heart to spend time in the nearby town on his own, often giving him a day's worth of spending money and letting him spend the day alone, encouraging him to get to know the townspeople on his own. Sage Heart still found time to train Love Heart but Love Heart was rapidly surpassing Sage Heart in the field of swordplay and has learned pretty much everything that could be taught for his element of magic, as more real world experience would be needed for him to learn more.

Sage Heart woke Love Heart up early on the day of what they had agreed years ago was his 16th birthday, which was just the day that his dad had found him 16 years ago. Love Heart was still tired but yawned, stretched, and got up.

"Good morning, son," Sage Heart said, "and Happy Birthday, here I have a present for you."

"Really?" Love Heart yawned again then asked, "What is it?"

"Here," Sage Heart reached into the pocket of his pants and pulled out a long nail file in a plastic sheath which he tossed to his son. Love Heart caught it and then stared at the nail file in confusion. He pulled it out, the nail file was well made and had a small hole at the bottom where a thin length of cord was strung to let him tied it to his belt, or wrist if he wanted.

"Umm thanks," Love Heart said, not sure what to make of this.

Sage Heart chuckled and pointed to the file, "Hold it in your hand and charge it with mana, like I showed you."

Love Heart nodded and did so, finding that charging the nail file with mana was quite easy. Suddenly the file sprung out, growing into a long and wide sword which almost overbalanced him. Love Heart was in awe, "wow," was all he said, taking a few practice swings and finding the sword fit him very nicely.

Sage Heart smiled at his son and explained, "That is a special sword I made for you, I spent all of winter forging it then using magic in order to give it that special ability to disguise itself as a nail file. You may need a weapon in the future to fight and defend yourself but these days people do not want you to walk around carrying a weapon out in the open."

Love Heart held his sword out and tried several more complex attack forms, attacking a couple trees nearby and getting used to the feel of the metal sword. Sage Heart watched, smiling and began to explain, "That sword won't cut through anything that a steel sword can't, but thanks to the magic I've used on it, that sword is indestructible and only your man a will be able to extend it from it's normal form. If you want to store it just pull your mana out of it, the sword won't ever retract on its own."

Love Heart collapsed the sword and put the nail file in his pocket before going to hug his father, "Thanks dad."

"Happy Birthday, Love Heart," Sage Heart said, hugging his son back, "Now, let's go into town and celebrate."

"Alright, race ya!" Love Heart Bear was suddenly full of energy and took off towards the town. Sage Heart took off running after his son, not using magic but just enjoying the time they had to spend in this place, they wouldn't be there much longer.

A couple months later, Love Heart was woken up roughly early in the morning when his father shook him awake. He rubbed his eyes and blinked, "Dad, what? Why are you waking me up this early?"

"Because we have things to do," Sage Heart said, "we're leaving today."

That got Love Heart awake, pulling out of his sleeping bag, "Leaving, to where?"

"To find others like us," Sage Heart said, "I've always believed we weren't the only one like ourselves in the world, but I felt I had to raise you properly rather than spending too find others and be unable to give anyone the attention they needed. Now that you've pretty much completed all the training I can give you I think it's time that you saw more of the world and that we did it together." Sage Heart smiled, "Now let's go to the river to wash up, we need to go into town to get a few more supplies before we set out."

Love Heart was understandably reluctant to leave, he'd spent all of his life here and now they were going to move on. He mused on this as he washed up in the river near their home, he'd miss the town and all the townsfolk he'd grown up knowing, even the few fleeting friends he'd known at one point or another, but Sage Heart was right, he couldn't just live in the cave forever, and now that he was both a skilled swordsman and a powerful lightning mage, he had to move on, maybe even learn other magical elements as he did so.

Sage Heart was washing up nearby as well and he could see how disappointed Love Heart looked. He waded over to his son and placed a hand on his shoulder, "I know it's hard to leave your childhood home, but we have more that we can do than just sitting around. It took me over 90 years to find my purpose in life, which was raising you, wouldn't you rather find a greater purpose in your life sooner than I did?"

Love Heart rolled his eyes, Sage Heart had told him about his life before being a "Care Bear", how he was a human named Koran Terada and how he had basically wasted his life looking for a purpose. "Yeah I know, dad, and yeah I guess I would like to find something to do with my life now," Love Heart admitted.

"Good for you! And I know I've said this before, but you've learned magic to this level faster than anyone else I've ever known. You're about three years ahead of even the most practiced mages I knew when I was growing up," Sage Heart patted his son's back proudly.

"Thanks dad," Love Heart turned and hugged Sage Heart.

"You're welcome, son, now let's dry off, get dressed, and get the last of our supplies so we can get going."

Love Heart had more of a spring in his step as they headed for town, and that made Sage Heart extremely happy to see that his son was taking this so well. This time tomorrow they would be on the road and looking for others that he could hopefully train them just as well as his son.

When the two bears got to the town, they found it unsettlingly quiet, sure it was early morning but this was about the time that the stores were opening, people were getting up for school or opening their places of business. As they headed deeper into town they saw that the stores looked abandoned, as though they had been opened the just left open in a hurry. Love Heart pulled out his sword in its nail file form, feeling unsettled.

"This just feels wrong, dad, something isn't right here."

"I know, Love Heart, but don't draw your sword just yet," Sage Heart said, placing a hand on his son's shoulder to forestall him from extending the sword, "I told the people in the town that we were going to leave so they might just be planning a farewell." Sage Heart's tone suggested that he wasn't really convinced of what he said, but was trying to keep them calm.

At that moment, they heard a loud scream of terror from the center of town. Both bears reacted instinctively, dashing as fast as they could towards the sound of the screams. The sight that greeted them was horrifying.

A man was holding a young woman off the ground by her neck with his left hand. The man had a dusky complexion with short white hair; he was wearing black plate mail armor complete with gauntlets and greaves with dull nubs around the shoulders, waist, and down the sides of the legs with a black cap fastened at his shoulders, but there was no helmet in evidence.

"Ahh, the last one, that's right scream, your family and friends are all gone and soon you will be joining them," the man said in a deep and sinister voice, grinning with great reverence for what he had planned. Love Heart and Sage Heart were too shocked to move when the man raised his right hand, but instead of killing her he began to move his hand as if coaxing something out. The bears watched in horror as a colorful substance flowed out of the woman's mouth and towards the man. He opened his mouth and began to admit the substance, which turned black as it entered his mouth and he seemed to draw strength from it.

Then he dropped the woman, and she lay very still, then the man turned to face Love Heart and Sage Heart, grinning sadistically, "I saw you two arrive, did you like the show?" he asked.

Love Heart's hand shot to his pocket, pulling out his nail file and charging it with mana, turning it into its sword form, shouting, "What did you do to the town?"

"The same thing that I just did to this woman, watch," he pointed to the woman. She twitched and suddenly her skin turned pitch black. The woman stood up and they saw that her mouth was now full of razor sharp teeth and her eyes were blood red. A hole had formed in her chest and her entire body was black and her hands and feet had sharp claws. The monster let out a roar, sounding like the cry of a long tortured creature before taking off into the wilderness.

"What was that thing?" Sage Heart asked, mentally preparing his magic to attack at any moment.

"A blank being, a creation of my own," the man explained, "allow me to introduce myself, my name is Dusk Heart, and what I just did was drain that woman of her emotions. I can draw power from the energy that emotions give off, and I just took the emotions of this entire town. They're all out in the wilderness as blank beings, creatures without emotions and driven only by instincts. I'm sure they'll cause havoc for years to come until they're all dead."

"You monster!" Love Heart shouted, charging at Dusk Heart, his sword raised. Dusk Heart moved in flash, drawing his own sword that neither bear had noticed until that moment, and swinging at Love Heart. Thankfully, Love Heart swung at the exact same time and instead of being cut in half, his sword absorbed the blow, not breaking thanks to Sage Heart's enchantment but the force of the blow combined with Love Heart's speed set the bear flying sideways into an empty display stand. Dusk Heart was about to turn and finish off the young bear, but was suddenly struck by a magically enhanced punch from Sage Heart, knocking him back several feet and onto his back.

Sage Heart stood, his hand enhanced with strength magic and conjuring a flame in his other hand. He spoke powerfully and deliberately, "You will not lay a hand on my son!"

Dusk Heart picked himself up and retrieved his sword, chuckling, "I was hoping to leave you for the end, so I could take everything from you and then kill you when all your hopes and dreams were dead, but since you're so eager to die, I'll finish you off now."

"You are a sick man, Dusk Heart, and I will end your terror right here!" Sage Heart shot out his hand and released a massive fireball, not caring for the state of the town with no one alive in it. Dusk Heart took the blast head on, it burned but he didn't appear all that injured, he just smirked and threw out a large tendril of some black substance that wrapped around Sage Heart's arm.

"What is this, dark magic?" he said, struggling against it.

"Hardly, that is dark matter, the true source of my power, and what will end you right here and now!" Dusk Heart declared, shooting out more of the dark matter to try and suffocate Sage Heart.

Sage Heart concentrated, and let loose a powerful blast of light magic, countering the dark matter. Much to Dusk Heart's surprise, the blast then flew at and hit him and, completely unprepared for the savagery of the counterattack, was blown a long distance and out of town.

Sage Heart took the moment to dash over to where Love Heart lay, dazed, and helped him sit up, "Love Heart, my son, are you alright?" he asked, greatly concerned.

"A little banged up but otherwise OK dad," Love Heart searched the debris and pulled out his sword, "Now let's go finish that Dusk Heart guy off!" Love Heart stood up but stumbled, still a bit dazed from the attack that had knocked him this far, and fell to a sitting position.

"No, Love Heart, you stay here, you're still hurt. Withdraw your mana from the sword, it will help you regain your bearings, even that small amount, and wait here. Follow when you're able to run on your own," Sage Heart turned and took three steps, then stopped, returned and hugged Love Heart tightly just as the green bear reverted his sword to its nail file form. "I love you, with all my heart, Love Heart Bear, be strong and live long." Love Heart was stunned, shocked that his father was speaking as though this was the last time, but hugged him back.

"I will dad, I will," was all he said. Sage Heart released his hold on his son, wiped a tear from his eye, and took off, heading to where he had blasted Dusk Heart, and hoping that Love Heart would recover soon. Love Heart just sat there, breathing and trying to get his strength back as soon as he could so he could go and help his father defeat this monster who had destroyed the town.

Dusk Heart crashed down near the waterfall and stood up, battered but not badly injured. "That old bear has some fight in him. Too bad it won't be enough to save him and his little son." Dusk Heart searched around, found and retrieved his sword, then held it up, grinning. He turned at the sound of someone running towards him and turned to face him, "Well, Sage Heart, I was expecting you."

"I told you before. You will not touch my son!" Sage Heart punctuated his last statement with a blast of Fire and Lightning. Dusk Heart was hit hard, and sent back several feet, but then dashed forwards, striking Sage Heart hard with his sword. Sage Heart dodged but his arm was cut badly. Sage Heart retaliated with a blast of light, but Dusk Heart just dodged and retaliated with several blades of dark matter, lacerating Sage Heart badly. Dusk Heart stepped forwards to deliver a killing blow, but Sage Heart used a magically enhanced jump to avoid the strike and fired a massive barrage of ice blades down at Dusk Heart. The man was cut and felt the icy blasts strike his head turning with a vengeance to the bear and charging, sword point towards him.

Three things happened at once, Love Heart appeared, having regained his breath and ready to fight, Sage Heart rounded on Dusk Heart, and Dusk Heart plunged his sword into Sage Heart's chest. Love Heart shouted, Sage Heart gasped painfully, and Dusk Heart snickered as he withdrew his sword from the bear's chest, leaving him stumbling in pain.

"Too bad, I was trying to run you through the heart and kill you instantly, but you turned so you just have a painful hole in your chest," Dusk Heart lamented.

Sage Heart dropped to his knees, his hand over the bleeding hole in his chest, "D-damn you!" he managed to grunt out.

"Oh well," Dusk Heart stepped towards the bear, clearly in pain and badly injured himself, "Guess I will just have you kill your son after you, good bye old bear!" With that last word, he delivered a kick to Sage Heart's chest, sending him flying over the waterfall and plunging down.

Love Heart, who had been watching in horror until that point, dashed forwards vainly hoping he could save his father. Dusk Heart just stepped aside, relishing the pain that Love Heart was feeling. Love Heart tripped and fell, looking over the side of the cliff just in time to see Sage Heart vanish behind the spray from the water's impact.

"DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!" he shouted, tears streaming down his face as he watched the old bear who had raised him, cared for him, and taught him everything he knew vanish before his eyes beneath the roaring currents of the waterfall.

Dusk Heart laughed at his victory, watching the despair creep through Love Heart as the bear lifted to his knees, crying.

Dusk Heart walked over to Love Heart and raised his sword, "I had hoped to do this to your father, but suffering is suffering, and now that everything in your young life has been taken away, I will dispose of you." Love Heart narrowed his eyes and reached into his pocket. Dusk Heart swung down, but was surprised when Love Heart's sword flew up to block the blow.

Love Heart's face was twisted in anger and sorrow as hot tears rolled down his face. He stood up, actually forcing Dusk Heart back a few steps as he spoke in a voice full of anger, hate, and loss. "You've taken everything from me! My father! My friends! All the people I ever knew or cared about are gone because of you!" Dusk Heart was about to retort snarkily when Love Heart pushed him back so there were a couple meters separated them now as he continued his tirade, "You've destroyed my life and now I'm going to make you pay!" Love Heart's sword suddenly was charged with electricity as he charged, striking Dusk Heart as hard as he could, and shocking him badly. Dusk Heart was about to retaliate but was met with a furious array of powerful electrically charged assaults from Love Heart.

Under normal circumstances Dusk Heart would have been able to fend off this assault and even retaliate, but not only was the assault he was under fueled by anger and magic he didn't think could exist in such a young person, he was still badly injured from his battle with Sage Heart and he couldn't fight back as well as he normally could have. Dusk Heart tried to use his dark matter against Love Heart several times, but the young bear just attacked and repelled the dark matter with blasts of lightning or blows form his electrically charged sword.

Eventually, Dusk Heart decided to retreat. He jumped backwards, letting Love Heart stand, panting from exertion as he readied another assault.

"You got lucky today, Love Heart," Dusk Heart said, on his knee in pain and exhaustion, "If you dad hadn't worn me down I would have killed you by now. I will be back to kill you some day, but for now I will leave you to your despair." The dark matter began to surround him.

"NO! You won't get away!" Love Heart began to charge up a powerful blast of lightning. He let the blast fly at Dusk Heart, but the man vanished in his dark matter orb, which flew away at high speed, letting the blast of lightning create a scar where he had been standing a moment ago.

"NO!" Love Heart shouted, "Noooo!" Love Heart dropped his sword and pounded the ground, crying in despair that he had failed to avenge his father. Getting up, he collapsed his sword and dashed to the cliff. Taking a deep breath he began to climb down the rock wall next to the waterfall, remembering what his father had taught him about rock climbing on his eighth birthday.

Love Heart reached the bottom and began to search frantically for any sign of Sage Heart, hoping desperately that his father had grabbed onto something or been caught on some rocks and was nearby, waiting for Love Heart to rescue him. After over an hour of searching, Love Heart dropped to his knees. His dad, Sage Heart, was gone, whether he had survived the fall or not the rapid currents would have swept his body far downstream by now, and it would be impossible to find him. Love Heart lay down and cried.

Love Heart wasn't sure how long he lay there, or even if he had fallen asleep, but he was shocked back to awareness by growling sounds from the forest. Love Heart wiped his eyes and looked around, red eyed, sharp teeth and claws. He saw them, blank beings. He saw them surrounding him, looking at him hungrily; he even recognized some of the silhouettes as people he'd known from the town. Love Heart pulled out his nail file and charged it while still in its pocket, it extended into its sword form and the small pocket changed into the scabbard.

"So it's come to this," he said, "first I lose the townspeople I grew up with, then my dad is killed and now," he drew his sword and pushed the scabbard through his belt, "I have to destroy what's left of them." He held his sword in both hands and lifted its point up towards the nearest one, "Very well, I release you from your tortured prison!" he shouted, charging at nearest blank being and slicing it in half with a single swing, its body dissolving as it let out a gasping death cry. The other blank being did not show any reaction to this and attacked, and Love Heart retaliated.

For hours, Love Heart Bear slew the blank beings as they came at him with sword swings and electrical attacks as they kept coming. Love Heart tried to count how many he had to destroy and eventually lost track. He just kept swinging and zapping, and even crying as he recognized some of the forms of the blank beings as people he'd considered as friends, but he knew they were lost and destroyed the blank beings they had become.

Eventually they were all gone; the blank beings were all gone. Love Heart stood panting and injured in several places from the sharp teeth and claws of the blank beings. Love Heart looked around, there was nothing but eerie silence, the bodies of the blank beings had dissolved when he slew them and now there was nothing to hear or see, the animals having all been scared away by the fight that had begun in the town several hours ago.

Eventually, Love Heart sheathed his sword, withdrew the mana from his sword and stowed the nail file in his pocket then sighed then began to climb up the cliff next to the waterfall. He reached the top and hauled himself up, panting, and then he saw something shining near the water. Curiously he walked over and picked up. It was a gold necklace with a quarter-sized heart shaped locket at the bottom, curiously, he opened it. One half was empty but the other half had a picture of Love Heart and Sage Heart they had gotten taken of them on his last birthday just a couple of months ago. The locket must have come off when Dusk Heart kicked him over the falls. Love Heart sighed brokenly and hooked the locket around his neck, tucking it into his shirt, then turned and walked back to the town.

Love Heart walked the empty streets, checking some of his favorite stores and restaurants, noticing that there were signs of Dusk Heart's attacks in the stores, smashed up tables, chairs, food scattered everywhere in the restaurants, most of which were no long functioning, their wiring having been cut and all their machines no longer working. Love Heart found his favorite fast food joint still intact and, despite the fact that he had never worked in the place before, got behind the counter and, after reading a couple of the instruction manuals, managed to make himself a burger, fries, and a vanilla shake, then shut off all the deep fryers, grilling trays, warming drawers, and everything else before leaving to eat the food on the road. It actually tasted good, better than it ever had before, at least he knew how to cook.

By the time he finished the food and drink, he had arrived at the arcade, which was amazingly still standing. He walked to the counter, got behind it and grabbed a handful of tokens. He walked around, stopping briefly to play each of his favorite games once; he even tried a few of the games he never liked or ones he had never tried before. Eventually he ran out of tokens and sighed, looking at the machines he used to enjoy playing while growing up. Then walked over to the fuse box and shut off all the power to the arcade.

Love Heart continued to walk down the roads, stopping to look in the shops he frequented and even ones he'd never really been into before. He stopped at the grocery store and took some extra supplies, as he suspected that that was what he needed to get for the journey.

Finally the sun was setting in the west and Love Heart left to return to his home. He made a small grave for his father outside the cave, making a simple headboard that read "Sage Heart, A father like no other"

Love Heart returned inside his home and lay down, starting to cry. He cried for what seemed like hours before he finally cried himself to sleep.


	5. Regina Arc, c1

Chapter 5: Journey Begins

Love Heart awoke early the next morning, the sleeping bag he had slept on top of stained with tears. The memories of the previous day's tragedies were still fresh in his mind and they would always remain so. Dusk Heart had been thorough and now there was no reason for him to remain here. Remembering his father's words before they had entered town, Love Heart resolved to set out on the same journey Sage Heart had planned with the same purpose, to find other members of his species and, hopefully, teach them magic as well.

Packing up didn't take as long as he thought, as all Love Heart needed was to pack up the preserved food and the sleeping bag he slept in. Then, as Love Heart was about ready to leave, he paused, and looked to the back room of the cave, a place he had never been into before. He'd heard his dad working on things back there before but he'd never seen what was down there. There was no reason to keep the mystery now, so before he left on his journey, he went into that room.

What Love Heart saw amazed him, it was a forge, not a particularly big one but large enough for Sage Heart to work in. Love Heart guessed this was where Sage Heart had forged his own magical sword that could shrink into a nail file. There wasn't much in here, the forge had been put out ages ago and everything was packed up on one side of the room, probably because Sage Heart intended to take those things with them. One of these packages caught Love Heart's eye, it was a rather large package wrapped in brown paper and tied together with thick twine, what got his attention most was the letter attached to the package with the words: "To my son, Love Heart Bear" clearly written on the envelope.

Intrigued, Love Heart removed the letter and opened the envelope, taking out a letter written in his father's handwriting. Love Heart found his eyes tearing up as he read, stopping a few times to wipe away tears that were forming so he could keep reading.

"_Dear Love Heart_

_My son, I hope greatly that you never have to read this but if you are, it means that some great tragedy has befallen me and you are now on your own. I prepared this special package for you if this happened and I hope it turns out to be useful to you. Inside you will find a book I have spent much of the last two years writing and creating, it contains everything I know about magic and how to teach it to others. The second item may appear to be a small piece of leather but if you charge it with mana it will change into a wallet that contains what remains of my personal wealth, use it well. The last special object is a special compass I've created that can track beings with similar forms to our own, "Care Bears" as the Great Wishing Star from my dreams called us, you simply need to infuse it with mana while holding it and it will point you to the nearest source of energy like ours. I am not sure how accurate it is over a distance but I am sure you will find out before long._

_Because you are reading this, I urge you to set out on your journey, there is little you can do just staying here in a cave and hopefully you will find more friends out there than you have up until now._

_Good luck, and always remember that I love you my son_

_-Love, Sage Heart Bear_

Love Heart read the letter several times then held it close, crying slightly. He then folded the letter up and put it in his pocket before unwrapping the package. It contained what the letter said it would: a large heavy book with Sage Heart's symbol on the front, a small but thick piece of leather, and a small compass with two pointers, one normal and one with a heart shaped pointer. Love Heart opened the book, it was heavy but not as heavy as it first appeared, and skimmed through it. A lot of it was quite complex but from what he gathered it was a detailed instruction manual on almost everything one could ever want to know about magic, including how to teach people at any age. Love Heart closed the book, more time to read later. Love Heart then charged the leather piece with man and as instructed and it expanded into a thick and loaded wallet. Love Heart skimmed the contents, mostly $100 bills but with a fair number of $20 bills, $10 bills, and $5 bills with assorted change including everything except for pennies. He thumbed through the bills and coins and estimated that there was at least $10,000, more than enough to see him through a few years on his own.

The compass was a different matter, Love Heart observed it for a minute or two before charging it with mana. The needle spun around a couple times before pointing in a particular direction, south according to the magnetic pointer in the compass.

"Guess that's where I'll be heading first then," Love Heart said. He picked up the book and carried it into the room where he had packed things up, opening his backpack, which was a large hiking pack and thankfully quite large, and carefully inserted the large tome into it. He removed some trail rations to make room, deciding he'd eat those on the road today. Love Heart didn't own a vehicle and even so he didn't know how to drive nor were there any major highways nearby, just first roads in the forest that were careful laid out to avoid harming nature, the town nearby had been quite isolated from contact that wasn't made electronically.

Love Heart returned to the forge room one last time and looked over the tools that Sage Heart had left. Everything was there that a blacksmith or any sort of craftsperson would need, but Love Heart had no such experience with these things, and he very much doubted that he'd be able to use these tools on the road, so he left them there, after retying them into a bundle so they would be at least somewhat protected from the elements.

Love Heart finally left his home, carrying his large backpack with sleeping bag tied to it and the trail rations for the day in his hand. He paused as he left and turned, he couldn't just leave the cave for others to find, it was all that was left of his life when he was growing up, but he knew that in a few days people would come to investigate the total loss of communication with the town and if his dwelling was discovered, and he was the only survivor, he might be tracked and hunted, something he couldn't afford to let happen.

With a shuddering sigh, Love Heart placed his hands together and charged up a massive ball of lightning. With a heavy heart, he fired the lightning bolt at the top of the cave entrance then turned and dashed away, partly to avoid the inevitable avalanche of rocks, but mostly because he didn't want to watch. Tears streamed form his eyes as he heard the rocks rumbling and falling, completely covering the entrance to his former home, and he kept on running, away from his home, and all the memories it contained.

Eventually, Love Heart stopped running, worn out, his face stained from tears which he wiped away as he slowed his pace and took out the trail rations that he began to munch on. After finishing a handful he took out the compass and checked it again, just to make sure he was heading in the right direction, he had gone slightly off course in his frantic dash from home so he altered his direction through the forest that surrounded his home.

Love Heart walked all day and nothing much happened. He saw several wild animals, small creatures, squirrels, birds of various types, even a raccoon at one point but he ignored them, they weren't doing anything to him and he enjoyed the fact that animals were still around after Dusk Heart's rampage the previous day. He preferred that the forest was full of animal noises rather than the deathly silence that had filled it after his fight yesterday. Love Heart kept walking waiting for nightfall or when he would find civilization.

Love Heart ate as he walked and found he was able to walk without tiring at all, owing to his years of physical and magical training. By the time night fell, Love Heart had exited the forest and spotted a road in the distance, after checking to make sure that he wasn't being followed or in any danger, he unrolled his sleeping bag and crawled into it. Love Heart stared up at the clear night sky, he hadn't seen it much in his sixteen years of life, the trees in the forest and the light in the city made it difficult to see the sky clearly at the best of times.

Love Heart didn't recognize most of the constellations and with nothing else to do he fell asleep quite rapidly. As he slept, Love Heart heard a voice speaking to him, one he didn't recognize.

"Love Heart Bear," it said.

"Who is it?" he asked, looking around in the black misty void he floated in inside his dream world.

Suddenly his dream world was filled with a bright light and a large five pointed star with a kindly old face appears. "Don't be afraid," it said, "I am the Great Wishing Star."

"OK and what does that mean exactly?" Love Heart asked, not sure how to respond.

"Year ago, when your father found you, I turned him into Sage Heart Bear, and now that you are on your own I am here to help you," the star said.

"Right, so what are you going to do?" Love Heart asked skeptically.

"I cannot do much as you must make your journey without my direct help, but I will tell you some things you need to know," the star said solemnly, "That symbol you possess is called a tummy symbol, and while I can't tell you everything it can do I will tell you that you will meet others like yourself, and when you do you must give them that gift. Use your symbol to bestow one on them, but in order to do so you must give them their true name."

"True name, what do you mean by that?" Love Heart asked, confused.

"Every Care Bear and Care Bear Cousin like yourself has a true name that shows their true personality. Your name is Love Heart Bear because you have a deep love for all sentient beings. That is why you were so badly hurt by what Dusk Heart did." Before Love Heart could reply the star continued, "You must observe the actions of the others you meet and reveal their true name. That is all."

"Wait!" Love Heart called, but the star had vanished, leaving Love Heart to continue to sleep and dream on the instructions given to him.

Love Heart awoke the next morning, recalling his dream. As he packed up his sleeping bag he looked down at the large red hear, three smaller pink heart inside it, and a dozen tiny hearts surrounding the large one that made up his symbol.

"What else can this thing do?" he asked aloud, not receiving nor expecting an answer. He finished packing up and set out again, checking the magical compass to make sure he was heading in the right direction, and striding out, hoping to find another like him sooner than later.

Because he didn't use a vehicle, or travel on the roads for fear of being hit by a car, Love Heart Bear took a long time to reach his destination. It took almost a week for him to reach the city limits of the first large city he had ever entered. He had almost used up his trail rations by this time and he munched on some of the last of it as the city came into view. The city, even fro this distance, was huge, bigger than the town he'd grown up near, much more spread out than anything man made he'd ever seen before.

As he entered the city he read the big green sign at the edge of the road: Welcome to Regina, Speed Limit 50 KP/H unless otherwise posted. The speed didn't really mean a thing to him, since he didn't drive and couldn't run nearly that fast.

It was midday when Love Heart finally entered the city of Regina, it was hot and his first goal was to find a place to spend the night, and the next few days while he rechecked his bearings. He'd have to stay in Regina for a while, to re-supply and to rest. He'd never walked so much without much rest in so long, and the trail rations, while filling, weren't enough to keep him going for a much longer. Knowing that hotels were near the center of the city, so began to walk up the main street, which he glimpsed from signs was called "Albert Street".

Love Heart hadn't reached the downtown are when he spotted a rather large hotel that was called the Seven Oaks, and decided it was as good a place as any to stay. He entered through the swinging glass doors and made his way to the counter. It took a minute for him to get the attention of the desk clerk but eventually he got the man to turn around, hang up what appeared to be a personal phone call, and said, "Hi, I'd like a room for the night."

"Huh another one, sure just a moment," he said, typing up something on the computer then handing Love Heart the bill. Love Heart discreetly pulled out the special wallet Sage Heart had given him and handed the money over, got his change and keycard, then headed up to his room. The room had a balcony view of the pool and waterslide and two twin sized beds. Love Heart sat down on one of the beds and dumped his stuff on the floor, relieved to have the weight taken from his shoulders.

Love Heart was hungry, and eager to eat something other than trail rations for the first time in a week he headed for the restaurant near the front desk. Once there he ordered the fish and chips and some juice. Once it arrived he began to eat, and think about his next move, then something hit him. Why wasn't anyone staring, yes it was true that he preferred the lack of attention and strange looks that he expected would accompany his arrival in any human city. And what bout the desk clerk, he had said "another one" upon seeing Love Heart, maybe he wouldn't have to search as hard as he thought.

He finished his meal, paid for it and left the server a tip and went back to the front desk. Thankfully the same clerk was still there so he rang to bell and got his attention.

The clerk turned around, "Oh, hi, can I help you?" he asked.

"Yeah, have you seen anyone else like me in this city?" Love Heart inquired.

"Yeah, some little red fox who looks like you, except he's red and a fox," the clerk said.

"Do you know where he lives?" Love Heart asked, hopefully.

"No, I've just seen him on the news a couple times," the clerk said, not really caring that he didn't know.

"OK, thanks anyway," Love Heart said, turning and walking away. It didn't really matter, he told himself as he pulled out the compass his dad had left for him, if he was nearby he'd be able to find him on his own. Once he stepped outside, he charged the compass with mana and watched the non-magnetic pointer, which pointed south further into town. Love Heart sighed and began to walk again, hoping he'd find this red fox before too long so he could get some real rest.

Love Heart was forced to turn down streets a few times as the needle point changed directions, but that was a good thing, if it was turning more easily it meant that this fox he was seeking was nearby. Eventually he walked past a couple alleys and saw that the arrow turned very easily. He put the compass away because he was close enough now that he wouldn't need to use it. He looked down the alleys that he had passed, searching for a sign of the red fox described to him.

It wasn't sight, it was a noise that alerted him, he dashed to the alley the noise was coming from and saw a small melee going on between four human gang members and what appeared to be a teenaged red fox like him! Not wasting a second thought, Love Heart dashed towards the brawl and heard them, swearing and cursing at each other.

"Yeah, fox, we're going to get you back for what you did to our boss last week!" one shouted, raising a thin steel pipe and trying to strike the fox's head. The fox was agile and dodged aside, punching the one wielding the pipe in his stomach.

"He had it coming, that jerk! And you all have it coming too!" he shouted back.

The gang member with the pipe stumbled back from the fox's punch and noticed Love Heart charging at them, he grinned and raised his pipe, "Well waddya know, looks like the fox brought a friend along," he swung down at Love Heart only to be surprised when Love Heart caught the pipe and kicked him away, causing him to relinquish his hold on the pipe.

"Thanks," Love Heart said, taking a hold of the pipe as though it were a sword, "I was worried I might have to fight unarmed." He swung the pipe sideways, two-handed at one of the gang members, laying him out flat. One of the other members who had a chain turned and began to swing it at Love Heart, striking the green bear twice, once on his shoulder and once on his leg. Love Heart stumbled backwards, that hurt a lot. The gang member saw this and aimed his next swing for the green bear's head. Love Heart held up his pipe and caught the chain around it as it flew at him, then yanked it out of the man's hand. The gang member was shocked at how strong the small green bear was, too shocked to notice when Love Heart grabbed him and sent a small shock through him, stunning him and knocking him out.

Once three gang members were off his back, the red fox focused his attacks on the one member, left. The fox easily countered the man's attacks with his instinctual fighting style, kicked him between the legs then punched him on his jaw with an uppercut and laid him out flat. The fox stood panting for a minute as Love Heart discarded the pipe and walked over to introduce himself, but the fox reacted first by punching Love Heart in the nose, causing it to bleed slightly.

"What did you do that for!" he shouted angrily at the green bear, "That was my fight now they'll think I need help to take them on!"

It took all of Love Heart's restraint to avoid striking the fox back, instead he wiped the blood from his nose and narrowed his eyes, "what is your problem, I came to help you so you wouldn't get beaten to death and you punched me in the nose."

"I don't need any help!" the fox replied, kicking one of the fallen gang members, "I've dealt with them before and I know how to fight, so I'll thank you to stay out of my way form now on!"

"Well excuse me for wanting to help!" Love Heart shouted back, not caring if he got into a shouting match with this rude little fox, "I just thought I was being helpful!"

"Yeah well, I didn't need it!" the fox shouted again. They were arguing in circles and continued to shout the same arguments at each other for about a minute.

During that time, the gang member that Love Heart had taken the pipe from got back up, dazed but not as badly hurt as the others. He saw the two arguing and smiled, now was a good chance to get them. The gang member dashed at them, scooping up the pipe and raising it, ready to smash the bear's head it, as he had his back to the attacker and was unaware of the threat to him, but the fox wasn't.

The fox saw the charging gang member, and instead of retorting against the green bear's last argument he dodged past him and punched the gang member in the gut right before he brought the pipe down on Love Heart's head, then kicked him off his feet.

"Dirty cheater, stay down!" the fox commanded, "yeesh these guys don't know when to give up."

Needless to say, Love Heart was surprised that the fox had broken away to strike the man down before the bear's head had been smashed in, "Wow, thanks," he said.

"Yeah well," the fox was noticeably calmer now, "I couldn't let him get a cheap shot off. Let's get out of here before the cops show up."

Love Heart didn't disagree, the two of them walked out of the alley and headed away from the fight scene. Now that they were at least on calmer terms, Love Heart started a conversation, "So, what's you're name kid?"

"I'm not a kid, I'm 13!" the fox snapped, "and my name is Alex Kitun. So who are you?" he asked.

"My name is Love Heart Bear, and I-" Love Heart was cut off by Alex's laughter.

"You're name is _Love Heart_ are you serious?" he asked, managing to stop laughing, "Oh man, I should have guessed something was weird with that heart stamp on your nose."

"You're one to talk," Love Heart retorted, "You've got a heart stamp on your nose too," he pointed out, a bit ticked that this fox was being so rude.

"Huh, yeah I guess you have a point," Alex touched the tip of his nose, "Always wondered why."

"So, Alex, where do you live?" Love Heart asked, hoping to chance the topic of conversation.

"West of the center of the city," Alex said.

"Well maybe you shouldn't go back there tonight, what if those gang members follow you and attack you in the middle of the night," Love Heart was worried.

"Feh, those wimps, they don't have the guts to try and follow me back home, and I'd just kick their asses if they did," Alex kicked forwards to emphasize his last statement.

"Even so, want to spend the night with me at the Seven Oaks?" Love Heart asked, not wanting to lose a connection to the first animal like himself he'd met since his father was killed.

"The Seven Oaks eh?" Alex said. He wasn't sure what to make of Love Heart, but at least he hadn't tried to kill him after all the insults and the punch to his face, "well I guess I can't turn down an invitation like that, sure! Race Ya!" The fox took off heading up north, apparently knowing where the hotel was. Love Heart shouted and took off after Alex.

OK, so Alex was a rude, short-tempered, annoying teenage boy, but he was the first other animal like him he'd ever met other than his dad, Sage Heart, so he had to try, not matter how much effort it took to keep from punching the fox's lights out or stunning him with electricity.


	6. Regina Arc, c2

Chapter 6: Liquid Bonding

Back in Love Heart's hotel room, Alex flung himself on one of the beds, staring up at the ceiling. "Man, I haven't been in one of these hotel rooms since my last birthday," he said reverently, "I even remember going down that waterslide," Alex added, pointing to balcony window.

"Waterslide," Love Heart looked out the balcony window, seeing the large blue tube-like slide that led from a large tower down into a pool, and noticing that some kids were sliding down into the pool, "looks interesting."

"Yeesh where did you grow up, Love Heart, in a cave?" Alex said, his voice showing his incredulousness and annoyance at possibly having to explain this.

"Actually, yes I did," Love Heart replied, slightly ticked at this reply.

"You grew up in a cave. And you're here in this city why?" Alex asked, as thought the very notion was ludicrous.

"It's a journey I have to take and very long story," Love Heart said, sitting down.

"Well save it, Love Heart," Alex said, saying the bear's name is a tone showing his slight contempt towards his name, which he clearly still considered to be a stupid name despite his appearance, "As long as we're here I'm going swimming, once I buy some new trunks."

"Well I've got nothing better to do so I'm going to join you," Love Heart said, "here," he tossed a card key to Alex so he could get back in on his own.

"Thanks," was all Alex said before he left.

Love Heart hung back for a minute, speaking to himself, "Great, the first other animal like me that I met and he's a rude little teenage fox. Ugg this is going to be more pain than its worth isn't it?" he asked to no one in particular before getting up to go and buy a pair of trunks, something he knew he needed to swim in public but had never owned before because he bathed in a river in the woods until now.

By the time Love Heart got to the gift shop, Alex was just leaving and didn't even give the green bear a second glance. Love Heart glared at the fox but didn't have time to save anything before he disappeared into the pool area. Love Heart didn't think too much on this as he entered the gift shop to buy his first pair of trunks, quickly settling on the first pair he grabbed that fit, he paid for them and left to go for a swim, heading for the place identified as a "changing room" to change into his new trunks.

Love Heart wasn't able to see Alex when he entered the pool area from the changing room but he guessed that he was up in the waterslide. That suspicion was confirmed when Alex's shouts were heard coming down the slide and shortly thereafter, he shot out of the bottom of the slide and into the pool. The fox poked his head out of the water, and rubbed the chlorine laced water out of his eyes, "Took you long enough," he said, half-serious half-joking.

"Right," Love Heart said, heading for the pool's edge.

Alex looked at him strangely, "What, aren't you going to go down the slide?" he asked.

"Why would I, I've been down slides before," Love Heart said not really caring.

Alex snorted, as he climbed out of the water, "Wuss," he said condescendingly, "and after that fight earlier I thought you had more guts than that."

"Hey, I saved your life earlier, and I have plenty of guts!" Love Heart retorted, raising his voice.

"Prove it," Alex said, heading for the stairs that led up to the water slide tower, "Or are you just scared?"

"I'm not scared you…" Love Heart's decrying fell on deaf ears as Ales began his ascent. Love Heart was about to charge after him when he slipped and fell painfully on his rear, then he noticed the "no running" signs everywhere, ok that made sense. Getting up he followed Alex to the top of the water slide tower.

Because there were so few people around there was no line to go down the slide. Alex was standing there, grinning smugly at Love Heart as he reached the top.

"Finally made it," the fox said, "Now prove you actually have guts!" he punctuated his last statement by quickly getting on his stomach and sliding down the waterslide as quickly as possible. Spurred on by Alex's insults, Love Heart got in the slide, sat down and pushed off. The ride was fast and despite how much the fox had been annoying him, Love Heart found the exhilaration of the speed of his sliding calmed his nerves a bit and even more so when he hit the water at the end of his ride.

Love Heart swam away from the bottom of the slide and surfaced breathing and treading water. Alex floated nearby, hanging onto the side of the pool and grinning, "See, that wasn't so bad now was it?" he asked sarcastically.

"No, it wasn't, it was kinda fun actually," Love Heart admitted, swimming over next to the fox.

"I used to come here a lot when I was younger," Alex said, "I spent a few of my birthdays going up and down that slide all day," the normally fierce expression on the fox's face softened and a tear even formed in his eye, trailing down his cheek. He wiped it away then his expression become more rough again, "well now, this is a great way to kill time until supper," Alex began to swim around on his back. Love Heart dog paddled briefly then began to do the front crawl swim.

The two animals swam around and went down the slide for about another hour before they got tired and went to change back into their normal clothes. As expected, getting fully dry took some time as they were both covered in fur.

"Ugg, this is the only thing I hate about this place," Alex complained, rubbing his towel over various parts of his body vigorously to get them dry, "it takes forever to get my fur dry."

"I know what you mean," Love Heart said, repeating the same actions to dry his own fur off. They didn't speak in the locker room after that, they finished drying off and re-dressed in the clothes they had worn before going to swim.

"So now what?" Alex asked.

"Supper?" Love Heart offered.

"Sure," Alex said, not really having anything to complain about.

The two animals went to the restaurant and sat down, Love Heart ordered a burger and fries, Alex ordered chicken wings, dry ribs and fries. Once the food arrived they dove in, eating their food with relish. Love Heart watched Anger Heart eating with his hands rather than utensils and thoroughly enjoying the literal meat and potatoes meal, but didn't comment on it. It wasn't Love Heart's place to criticize poor eating habits of anyone, especially not someone he had only just met and certainly not someone he didn't really like and was only trying to get along with because he felt he had too, as Alex was the only other animal like himself he'd seen, other than his dad.

Alex, on the other hand, felt no such reluctance, looking at Love Heart's burger, which had tomatoes and lettuce on it, and said, "Why don't you try something more interesting?"

"Like what?" Love Heart asked, doing his best to ignore Alex.

"Like these, genius," Alex said sarcastically, gesturing to his now half empty basket of boneless dry ribs, "This is some of the greatest food on the earth," he said, before stuffing three of the ribs into his mouth and chewing on them with relish.

"Maybe I'll try them some other time," Love Heart said biting into his burger again. Alex just rolled his eyes and kept eating, chewing somewhat loudly. Love Heart was thankful that there was no one else eating in the restaurant at the moment or he would have really been embarrassed.

Once they ate and paid, both for their own meals, they headed back up to Love Heart's room. Lying on the bed, Alex slipped the television on, hoping to find something decent on, cycling through the channels. Love Heart just watched, never really having watched TV, Sage Heart had never bothered to try and get electricity in their cave and when he was in town, Love Heart had only caught fleeting glances of televisions in some restaurants but owing to noise he had never really been able to watch them.

Alex stopped on some weird animated program about people with yellow skin and glanced at Love Heart's perplexed expression. "Let me guess," he said, irritably, "you've never seen a television before either."

"I've seen them," Love Heart retorted, his patience wearing thin with the way Alex treated him, "I just never really watched any shows before."

"Well then watch this, it's Sunday night and that means that there's a bunch of great animated comedies on," Alex lay back, using the pillows to prop his head up, "enjoy."

Love Heart said nothing but lay back and watched the cartoons. Eventually Love Heart became too tired to stay up, crawled under the covers and fell asleep. Alex stayed up a little longer but he too was too tired to say up much longer and eventually fell asleep too, actually happy to have met Love Heart. Sure he had a weird name, knew very little about the world of technology and was irritating, but he had stepped in to help him in a fight, something that no one had ever done for him before so he could at least try to get to know him.

The next morning, Love Heart awoke early and decided to take a shower; he had done so a couple times before, but before now had mainly just bathed in the river near his old home. He adjusted the water temperature and stepped in, letting the torrent wash him off before he began to use the shampoo to wash off.

Alex heard the shower turn on and rolled over, trying and mostly failing to stay asleep, "He couldn't have waited till later?" he muttered angrily to himself, rolling over again and opening his eyes.

Love Heart finished his shower and dried off, again taking longer than normal, before pulling his pants on and re-entering the main hotel room. Alex was sitting up in bed, checking the channels again when Love Heart appeared.

"Good morning," Love Heart said.

"Yeah, sure, 'morning," Alex said, clearly till ticked that he'd been woken up earlier than he wanted to be. Alex shut off the TV and slid out of bed, heading to take a shower himself while Love Heart sat down on the bed and pulled the large book Sage Heart had left him out to read. He had at least a couple hours until check out and he might as well learn some of the basics of magic, just in case he decided to teach it to Alex at a later date. Most of what he read in the first chapters was stuff he'd learned from Sage Heart already, but it didn't hurt for him to review it again while he had a minute or two.

Alex's shower was shorter than Love Heart's as he was more used to showering than the bear was. He dried off thoroughly, hating when his fur was wet all day, and emerged in the hotel room wearing just his underwear before going to get his clothes. He noticed Love Heart reading a rather large book and also, as Love Heart had not put a shirt on yet, the symbol of a large red heart with three smaller pink hearts diagonally aligned inside and a dozen tiny red hearts surrounding the large heart, he'd noticed the symbol while swimming last night too but had thought it was just a strange reflection of the light off the pool water mixed with some chlorine in his eyes.

"What's that?" Alex asked, as he pulled his own shirt on.

"This, it's a book my dad left to me," Love Heart said, closing the book as he had read pretty much everything he already knew.

"Not the book," Alex said, irritably, "That tattoo thing on your stomach."

"Oh this," Love Heart placed his hand over the tummy symbol. In all honesty he rarely thought about the array of hearts on his tummy; the symbol was almost always covered by his shirt and no one had really mentioned it before. "Honestly, I'm not sure, my dad said he gave it to me somehow with his own tummy symbol and that's it really."

"Well that's something all right," Ales said, not really sure what to make of it. Love Heart Bear was an interesting person to be sure.

Once they had both dressed and Love Heart had gathered his things together, they checked out of the hotel and left, standing outside on the sidewalk. In all honesty, Love Heart hadn't really thought through what he'd do once he met another being like himself not to mention he didn't know anything to do in this town.

Alex saw Love Heart's mystified expression and sighed irritably, "Yeah, you have no idea what you're doing. Follow me," Alex said, leading Love Heart across the street over to the bench that he knew was where the bust stopped. Love Heart was a bit mystified but when the bus pulled up, Alex gestured for Love Heart to get on. "Just pay $2.50 and we can ride most places in the city," Alex said, placing a small plastic card form his wallet on a receiver, "drop the money in the slot and grab the transfer paper."

"Alright," Love Heart said, placing the coins from his wallet in the clots, and grabbing the slip the machine printed out. Love Heart went to sit with Alex, causing the fox to groan but not say anything.

They sat on the bus, not saying anything for close to an hour before Alex reached up and pulled the rope that caused the "next stop" sign to light up. A minute later the bus stopped on the side of the road.

"Get up, we're here," Alex said, to Love Heart. The bear hadn't been paying attention, his mind had wandered off into a memory. Alex scowled, "Hey, get up!" he shouted. Love Heart snapped out of it and glared at the fox, getting out of his seat.

"OK, I'm up," Love Heart said. Both animals got off the bus and Alex pointed out their destination.

"There, Wascana Park," Alex said, "It's a nice place to hang out, I'd take you to my other favorite place but I don't want to spend all say showing you the current library of computer games."

Love Heart was left confused by this statement but didn't reply and just followed the fox into the park. The park itself was nice, trees, grass, people picnicking, and a lake in the middle of it all. Alex lay back on the grass and stared at the sky and Love Heart sat down next to him. He'd only known Alex for a day and didn't feel particularly close to him, but he had to keep trying for his dad's sake.

As if reading his mind, Alex popped a question to Love Heart that he wasn't expecting, "So, Love Heart, you mentioned you had a father, where is he now?"

Taken aback, Love Heart just sighed sadly, "He's dead. He was killed a week ago."

Alex's expression, which was almost always anger or at the very least passive irritation, softened suddenly and he sat up. "Killed? By who?" the fox asked.

"A man who called himself Dusk Heart, he attacked the town that was near where we lived, turned the people there into monsters. When my dad and I got to town, he was waiting for us and my dad, Sage Heart, fought him to protect me but Dusk Heart ran his through and kicked his over a waterfall." Love Heart's eye had teared up considerably and he was holding back his crying with great effort as talking about a tragedy so fresh in his memory was extremely painful for him, "I searched for him, I thought he might still be alive, but he was gone. Then I had to destroy the monsters that Dusk Heart changed the townspeople into, blank beings." Love Heart reached into his shirt and pulled out the locket that he had found at the top of the waterfall that day, "This is all that I found left by him after he was killed," he opened the locket to reveal the image from his last birthday of him and Sage Heart.

Alex looked at the image and actually smiled, "So that's your dad eh, where's your mom?"

"I didn't have a mother, Sage Heart Bear wasn't my birth father, he adopted me when he was originally human," Love Heart was cut off by Alex.

"Whoa whoa whoa whoa, human? OK, Love Heart, start from the beginning, tell me your story."

"If you insist," Love Heart said, closing the locket and putting it inside his shirt again. Over the next couple hours, Love Heart told Alex his story, starting with Sage Heart's life as Koran Terada, finding Love Heart, changing into Sage Heart, raising Love Heart, and finally ending right before the battle with Sage Heart. Love Heart sighed and wiped the tears from his eyes and sighed. "That's my whole story."

"Hmm," Alex said. He was impressed with the bear's background and then sighed, "My grandparents were killed couple months ago by a criminal."

"Really?" Love Heart asked.

"Yeah, but I don't want to talk about it," Alex turned his head away from Love Heart.

"He never talks about his past," a voice chipped in, "And believe me I don't think anyone will ever know."

Alex tensed up, recognizing the voice, "Oh no, not him," he groaned.


	7. Regina Arc, c3

A/N: I would like to thank my friend Shimmering Star/Eternal Dragon's Tear/Aqua Bear for his help in creating the character of Marine Bear, who belongs to both of us.

Chapter 7: Magic Discovered

Love Heart turned and was surprised to see another animal like himself and Alex, a young male badger this time, about Alex's age and well built for his size; he was wearing a t-shirt and shorts. The odd thing, at least to Love Heart, was that the badger's fur was normal colored, for a badger anyway, he was black and while striped rather than being an odd color like Love Heart's lime green fur, or Alex's fiery red fur.

Alex obviously knew him and was clearly not happy that the badger was here; he didn't even turn to look as the badger spoke again.

"Well, Alex, it seems you've made a new friend, unless that's one well made animatronics bear over there."

"Oh can it Daniel!" Alex shouted, continuing to look away from the badger towards Wascana Lake.

Love Heart wasn't sure of the history these two shared, but it was obvious to anyone that they didn't like each other one bit. "I'm very real," Love Heart said, standing up, "and your name is Daniel then?"

"Yep, my name is Daniel, and I guess you know this enrage lunatic pretty well by now," Daniel the badger said. Alex said nothing but his face showed he was clearly angry, just doing his best to hold it back for no other reason than that eh found interacting with Daniel more annoying than trying to ignore him.

"I wouldn't say he's a lunatic, I mean yeah he's annoying and gets angry at the least little thing-"

"Oh just shut up and leave me be!" Alex said, interrupting, getting up and storming off closing to the edge of the lake to sit and brood to himself.

"Strange, usually he responds with violence," Daniel observed, "So why are you hanging out with him?"

"Honestly, because other than him, and you, he's the first animal like me that I've met, other than my father," Love Heart explained, "I'm just searching for others like me, and now I've found two."

Daniel smiled, Love Heart was certainly an interesting person, "Well then, tell me about yourself, it'll be nice to get to know someone who isn't always flying off the handle for no reason."

As Love Heart told his story to Daniel, leaving out the parts about magic for now, a figure stood nearby among the trees, a blue bear wearing just his fur (not that it really mattered), and a blue drop of water for a symbol on his tummy. He wasn't interested in the three animals near the lake instead he was watching the humans, looking on in disgust.

"Humans," he said aloud, his voice full of hatred, "They sit here, oblivious to what they're doing," he watched angrily as a young boy tossed a wrapper from a candy bar onto the grass, only for a light wind to carry the wrapper into the lake, "They leave their garbage everywhere, pollute the water, always, destroying what life might be there," he raised his hands, "but not anymore!"

Daniel nodded and sighed, saddened by the tale Love Heart had told him. "That's quite a story," he said, "So do you think you'll see Dusk Heart again?"

Love Heart clenched his hands and bared his teeth, surprising Daniel with this sudden display, "He will, and when I meet him again, I'll make him pay for what he did to me and my father!"

Daniel did his best to change the subject, "So why are you hanging out with Alex, I didn't think it would be possible to get to know him without getting hurt."

"Actually, the first thing he did to me was to punch me in the face," Love Heart admitted, "and honestly I've been fighting the urge to just leave him and be on my way."

"So why are you still hanging out with him, Love Heart? You've only known him for one day," Daniel asked, having learned the green bear's name when he told the badger his life story.

"A sense of duty mostly, he may be an annoying little brat but he's the only other animal like myself I've ever met, other than you and my dad," Love Heart explained, "That and Sage Heart left me instructions. He told me to seek out others like myself, and I don't want to be alone anymore."

"Well I certainly won't leave you alone with him," Daniel said, "but I'll have to see how things go before I make any definite decisions." Alex continued to watch the lake, doing his best to block out the conversation between Daniel and Love Heart.

Was the lake boiling? He could see the center starting to bubble up. No, it was more like the water was piling up on itself, getting higher and higher. Other people were starting to notice and were pointing when suddenly it erupted into a massive pillar of water.

People were shouting and screaming as the pillar smashed over the sides of the lake, leaving a huge imprint where it hit.

"What the heck is that!" Daniel shouted, but Love Heart already knew the answer.

"That's magic!" Love Heart said. Seeing that almost every human was fleeing, Love Heart began to charge up a lightning bolt which he unleashed at the pillar of water, causing some of it to evaporate.

Daniel and Alex weren't quite sure what they were seeing, but Daniel decided to run with it and shouted, "Keep that up, if the lightning hits the water it will cause electrolysis!"

"Elec-what?" Love Heart shouted as he dodged a line of water that was fired at him frot he column of water.

"When electricity hits water, it causes water to turn back into its base elements, hydrogen and oxygen!" Daniel called back.

"Hey, if he does that then there will be nothing left of the lake!" Alex called back, "That's if there's any end to the water!"

Love Heart had to agree with Alex, so instead he concentrated. He reached out like Sage Heart had taught him, feeling any source of magic nearby. He got a very faint signal from Alex and Daniel, a larger feeling from the column of water, and connected to it…

There was someone nearby controlling it. "There!" he shouted, turning towards the strongest feeling and running towards it as fast as possible, pulling out the nail file of his and charging it into sword form. Both Alex and Daniel couldn't fully process what was happening, but all they knew was that what Love Heart was doing was unlike anything they had ever seen and dashed after him, hoping to find out what was happening.

The blue bear who was controlling the water saw Love Heart's electrical attack on the water, "Magic," he said, irritated. He saw that Love Heart was approaching and turned to face him as the green bear ran up sword in hand and letting the water he had been controlling fall back into the lake.

"Another Care Bear," Love Heart said, surprised that the one behind the attacks was another one of his kind.

"I don't know what a 'Care Bear' is and I don't care," the blue bear said, "but why are you protecting humans?"

"Why are you attacking humans," Love Heart said, holding his sword ready to fight.

"Because, humans are destructive monsters!" the bear declared, holding his hand out as a sword of ice formed in his outstretched hand, "they pollute the water, killing animals and plants that live there! And I'm going to make sure that none of them have a chance to do that again!" He charged and swung at Love Heart. Love Heart tried to dodge aside but forgot he was wearing his heavy backpack and got cut on his arm, the cold made it hurt a lot and in retaliation he swung at and shattered the ice sword the blue bear was holding. The blue bear dropped the hilt that was melting in his hand and glared at Love Heart.

Love Heart just glared back, "I can't believe you thought an ice weapon would stand up to a real one. Just who are you?" he asked severely.

"My name is Marine Bear, and I promise you, I'll be back," Marine Bear turned around and took off running into the tree filled part of the park, leaving a confused Love Heart standing facing the direction the blue bear had run.

"Alright, what the hell was all of that!" Alex demanded, as he and Daniel had caught up to Love Heart by now and had seen and heard the brief encounter between the green and blue bears.

"And what's a Care Bear exactly?" Daniel asked.

Love Heart realized he was still holding his sword and retracted it into its nail file form, putting it back in his pocket, "I'll tell you all later, for now I think we should get out of here before any police show up."

"Love Heart makes a good point," Daniel said, "I'd rather not get caught in this and try to explain to the authorities what happened here."

"Alright fine!" Alex said, irritably, "Let's go to my place, com'on!" Alex took off, forcing Love Heart and Daniel to take off after him.

Some time later when the authorities arrived some time later, they found nothing out of the ordinary except that the area surrounding the lake was wetter than it should have been considering that it was a cloudless day. Various witness reports of the lake attacking them and even flashes of lightning were discounted as none of it made sense, and why would it?

Alex showed Daniel and Love Heart to his house, which was on a wide corner in a small neighborhood near the closest thing the city had to a freeway. Alex walked up the short steps to his house and unlocked the door.

"You know I always thought when I saw your house it would explain a lot about you, but this place is so, normal, doesn't explain much," Daniel commented.

"Oh can it will ya!" Alex shot back, opening the door and letting them in. The inside of the house wasn't sparsely furnished, a large television on a makeshift TV stand, a small coffee table, an L shaped couch in the back-right corner from where they entered, and a door leading to the kitchen on the left.

"Nice place," Love Heart commented.

After removing his shoes, Alex immediately walked over to the couch and flopped onto the corner cushion, his favorite spot. "So, Love Heart, mind explaining just what happened back there?" he asked, sounding both ticked and curious.

"Yeah," Daniel said, sitting down on the edge of the couch to the right of Alex, "I'm still trying to figure out just what the heck that was."

"Well," Love Heart had gone over how to explain this several times in his head and with no one else around and not other explanation he just told the direct truth, "it was magic."

A moment of stunned silence later, Alex spoke up, "IF I hadn't seen it myself, I'd say you were insane."

"Indeed," Daniel chipped in, "but there we have it, and I can't think of any other plausible explanation for it."

Love Heart sighed in relief, this was good. Honestly he had been wondering how he'd show these two that he could use magic and that magic was real, and he said so aloud.

"That's one issue out of the way," Love Heart said.

"So," Alex said, "Think you can teach me how to use magic."

"Teach us," Daniel interjected, "I'm not letting you learn magic without me."

"You? Ha!" Alex laughed derisively, "I didn't think you _could_ learn magic."

"Oh yeah, well I bet I could kick your ass with or without magic!" Daniel shot back, his arm tensing as if ready for a brawl.

"Oh yeah, you wanna go!" Alex said, his anger rising.

"Enough!" Love Heart said, "yeesh what's wrong with you two?"

"What wrong with us?" Alex asked, "What about you, Love Heart, you wander around carrying a hidden sword and with special powers you can just pull out whenever and you ask what's wrong with _us_?"

Love Heart's eye's narrowed, "What's wrong with magic, it's something I spent years learning, not something I was born with."

"You wanna knock it off, Alex, or he might not teach us anything," Daniel added, trying to stem the argument he had inadvertently started.

"Hey stay out of it, Daniel!" Love Heart snapped.

"Why should I, I'm not going to just sit here while you two argue about nothing," The badger retorted.

"It's not about nothing, it's about magic!" Alex shouted back.

The argument went back and forth for another hour, stopped only when Love Heart's stomach growled and all three of them noticed how hungry they were.

"Well that enough arguing for now," Alex said, calming down faster than Daniel and Love Heart would have expected, "How about I make us some dinner."

"You mean heat up some pot noodles and microwave some bagels," Daniel taunted almost reflexively.

"No," Alex said, surprisingly calmly, "That may be what you're forced to eat when you have to cook but I'm going to make some real food." Alex got up and walked over to the kitchen. Love Heart and Daniel, both intrigued by the fox's sudden change in attitude, got up and followed him, standing at the door to the kitchen and looking in. The kitchen was simple, there was a fridge built into an alcove in the left hand wall, a counter along the right hand all with cupboards along the bottom and top, a stove with a microwave hanging above it, and a sink near a window on the back wall. Their attention was drawn to the file cabinet that was next to the fridge, which Alex was rooting through with focus they though was unusual for him.

"Here we go, beef vegetable stir fry, perfect!" Alex said, pulling out a sheet of paper and sliding it onto a clip on the front of one of the cupboard that had been unnoticed until that point. Alex pulled out a microwave rice cooker, measured out four cups of water from the sink and then, using a step stool to reach it, pulling out a large jar of rice and adding two cups of it to the rice cooker. Putting the lid on the fox set the rice cooker in the microwave and set the timer for 30 minutes.

Love Heart and Daniel watched the fox move about the kitchen with almost liquid fluidity, pulling out a huge wok, pouring some canola oil on it, and setting it on its stand over a burner. Turning the burner on he went to the fridge and pulled out a bunch of vegetables, carrots, cucumbers, and other things the bear and badger couldn't identify along with a small packed piece of beef. Alex pulled a cast iron frying pan out of a drawer underneath the oven, sprayed it with some cooking spray and set it on another burner, turning it on and letting it heat up while he began to chop up the vegetables with a speed that they two observers would not have believed if they had not seen it.

Love Heart and Daniel especially noticed that Alex's face was more focuses than they had ever seen, no anger or frustration showed as he chopped up the vegetable and set them aside one at a time. Clearly, Alex knew what he was doing and was very good at it.

Sensing that the pan was hot enough, Alex emptied the beef strips into the pan and carefully began to fry them as he finished the vegetables. Alex then went to a spice rack next to the doorway that the two animals hadn't seen until then, grabbed a couple jars of spice and a couple jars with liquid in then and began to mix the contents together, making a stir fry sauce. All this time, Alex only briefly checked the recipe; he had obviously made this before and was just checking the recipe in order to make sure that he wasn't missing any of the details, and making sure that the beef strips cooked evenly.

Alex opened a drawer and grabbed a large stir frying spatula, then took the vegetables he had been cooking and dumped them into the wok, which began to sizzle with the oil and vegetables in it, then began to stir them with incredible speed and grace as his guests watched, slack jawed. When he deemed it right, Alex dumped the stir fry sauce he had prepared over the vegetables, keeping up the rhythm of stir frying while still keeping the beef well cooked. When the timer for the rice went off, Alex dumped the beef from the pan into the wok, turned off the burner for the pan, and kept stir frying for a couple more minutes before deeming it ready. He pulled a large bowl out of a cupboard along the ground and carefully dumped the contents of the wok into it before shutting off the last burner and removing the rice from the microwave and pulling the lid off, letting the steam billow out from it. Alex then carried the food items, one at a time, past his stunned observers and setting them on the coffee table before pulling out three plates, three forks, three knives, and three glasses and setting them on the coffee table next to the bowls with the food in them. To finish, he went to the refrigerator and pulled out a half empty jug of orange juice and a small bottle of soy sauce which he set on the table before sitting down, serving himself a big spoonful of rice and some of his stir fry with a little soy sauce.

Alex was about to dig in when he suddenly remembered he had company. He looked up at the stunned looks on Love Heart and Daniel's faces and said, "Sit down, dig in, trust me you'll like it," with a smug look of triumph on his face.

Daniel and Love Heart were indeed stunned that the fox knew how to cook, and even more so a minute later when they tasted the food and found it tasted good, really good!"

"Wow, this stuff is really good!" Love Heart commented, beginning to shovel the stuff down with relish.

"Who'da thunk it, the fox knows how to cook," Daniel said, seemingly wanting to start and argument, but Alex was having none of it.

"My grandma taught me how to cook all sorts of things," he explained as he finished his first serving and reached for a second, "Believe me when I say I know how to make good food."

"No argument here," Love Heart said, polishing off his serving and loading up his plate again.

The three strange animals finished their food and sat back, satisfied, "That was good stuff Alex, guess I was wrong about you," Daniel said.

"I'll take that as an apology," Alex said. Having finished cooking and eating his disgruntled attitude was starting to return, albeit not as severe as before, "So Love Heart, are you gonna teach us magic?"

"Of course," Love Heart said, recalling the mission his dad had imposed upon him, "But you'll have to wait until tomorrow, I need to rest a bit and finish reading the book my dad gave me." Love Heart glanced down towards his tummy, at where his symbol was hidden by his shirt, "Maybe it's time I gave you two your proper names."

"Proper names?" Daniel was incredulous, "What's that supposed to mean? We have names."

"I think he means a name like his," Alex said, his tone suggesting that Daniel was an idiot for not figuring out what Love Heart had meant right away.

"A name that describes how we are eh?" Daniel said, leaning back in his seat, "Well how about you go by Annoying Heart Fox."

"You should be called Smug Heart Badger!" Alex retorted.

"Just because I speak my mind all the time it doesn't mean I'm smug, Hothead Fox!" Daniel shot right back.

"Hey why don't you just shut up, Snarky Heart Badger!" This was getting out of hand and Love Heart decided to end it.

The green bear stood up and shouted, "Enough!" silencing the two arguing animals, "Yeesh, why we're supposed to be called Care Bears I have no idea but since I was given this job I'll pick your names, besides I think I know what you two should be called."

"Oh yeah? What's that?" Alex asked, cocking an eyebrow incredulously.

"Yes, you," Love Heart pointed to Alex, "Should be called Anger Heart Fox, and you, Daniel," he said, pointing to the badger, "are now Defiant Heart Badger."

Before either Alex or Daniel could speak up or protest, they were interrupted by a glow that seemed to be emanating from Love Heart's tummy. Love Heart looked down at the glow and before anyone could comment, two beams shot from his tummy, going through his shirt and striking both Alex and Daniel on the stomach; the action had been involuntary as Love Heart could neither stop it nor had he started it. A moment later the light faded, leaving a distinctive pattern on both the fox and the badger's shirts; both lifted up their shirts to check underneath and sure enough the symbols were there too, both as part of the fur pattern and something akin to a tattoo on the skin underneath. Alex's symbol was a heart with a fire burning inside of it and Daniels was a flag with a heart on it and a pair of cartoony curved swords crossed beneath it.

"Huh, looks kinda like a jolly roger," Daniel pointed out, tracing his symbol with one finger.

"Yeah, it does," Alex said. Love Heart meanwhile was looking down at his shirt to see how his symbol had left an imprint of itself there.

"Well then, Defiant Heart Badger, I think I could get used to that," the newly named Defiant Heart Badger commented.

"It certainly fits you," the fox now called Anger Heart Fox commented smirking.

"Why was that a compliment, Anger Heart?" Defiant Heart smirked, "if anything your new name seems to fit you perfectly."

Anger Heart just scowled back at Defiant Heart and muttered something rude under his breath. Love Heart sighed, well he's found some new friends and the learning would start tomorrow. The bear had to wonder though, how many more were there and would they all take this concept of a new name and a tummy symbol as well as these two?


	8. Regina Arc, c4

Chapter 8: Anger Heart and Defiant Heart, Love Heart's first students

Love Heart and Defiant Heart had slept in the living room, as Anger Heart had taken the sole bed which was in his room. Defiant Heart slept on the couch while Love Heart used the sleeping bag he always slept in on the road.

Come morning, Anger Heart woke up first and headed for the shower, taking his time to clean off completely before anything else. Love Heart and Defiant Heart each took their turns, and all three of them had to spend a fair amount of time drying off. While Defiant Heart was showering and drying off, Love Heart was about to pull his clothes on when Anger Heart stopped him.

"Whoa, tell me something, Love Heart, how long have you been on the road and how many sets of clothing do you have?" the fox asked.

"About three why?" Love Heart asked.

"Because, your clothes stink and I'm doing laundry. Just give me your clothes and I'll wash them," Anger Heart said.

Love Heart didn't oppose him and took out the rest of his clothes, then stared at his shirts, "huh, take a look at this, Anger Heart." The fox looked over and saw that on the front of Love Heart's shirts his new symbol was now imprinted in roughly the spot where it would line up with his symbol when he wore it.

"Weird, wonder if my clothes are like that too," he said, taking Love Heart's clothes, and Defiant Heart's as well, and heading to the basement to load up the laundry.

A couple minutes later, Defiant Heart exited the bathroom, having dried off enough to not feel wet all day and looked around, trying to find his clothes.

"Oh, Anger Heart decided to wash our clothes along with his," Love Heart explained, he was sitting on the couch reading through the large book on magic that Sage Heart had left for him.

"That was nice of him, but what am I supposed to wear today?" the badger protested.

"Oh lighten up," Anger Heart said, coming up from the basement where the washing machine and dryer were, "If you haven't noticed, we don't really need to wear clothes, our fur hides anything people would consider inappropriate. Oh and we're not going to be leaving the house today anyway so just relax and enjoy it, besides it's too hot to wear clothes and fur today anyway."

"He has a point," Love Heart said, without looking up from his book.

"Alright," Defiant Heart wasn't fully vested in the idea, but hey at least it was one less thing he had to do today. The badger then turned to Love Heart and asked, "So what are you reading?"

"It's a book about magic," Love Heart said, again without looking up, "my dad, Sage Heart, left it for me, to help me continue to learn and to teach others."

"So how long is this gonna take," Anger Heart said impatiently, folding his arms across his chest.

"Just be patient, it took me ten years to learn magic," Love Heart said, still reading his book.

"Ten years!" Anger Heart and Defiant Heart shouted, surprised and in Anger Heart's case angry.

"We don't have that kind of time to learn magic!" Anger Heart raged.

"Just hold on!" Love Heart retaliated, looking up from his book for the first time since he started reading it, "I didn't say it would take you that long you just need to be patient!" Love Heart returned to reading his book.

"I can't believe it he got our hopes up for nothing!" Anger Heart continued his tirade to Defiant Heart while Love Heart did his best to ignore him.

"Just be patient, Anger Heart," Defiant Heart said, leaning back in his seat and sighing irritably.

"There!" Love Heart's shout thankfully interrupted another tirade from Anger Heart. Both Anger Heart and Defiant Heart listened silently as Love Heart read the next part aloud, starting with the title of the chapter he was reading, "Learning Magic in a Short Period of Time. Normally it takes years to training and practice to learn magic but for those who don't have the time of patience to learn such things there is a faster alternative. For reference, the body does its fastest period of growth during adolescence, this is even more true in the case of mana as well and if the same training for magic is done between the ages of around 10 to 18 then the mana reserves needed to choose the element and train with it can be trained in anywhere from a week to a month.

"However it is important to note that if this method is used instead of the years long method of training then the mage's mana reserve will be drastically lower, not enough to make magic useless but enough that the mage can run out of mana while in the middle of combat or other events where magic is being used in large amounts and will start to feel tired after casting magic consistently for a prolonged period of time. However, if the mage continues to practice elemental magic throughout adolescence then they can approach the level of magic that long term magic training can provide, but only if the training or usage is frequent and consistent." Love Heart looked up at Anger Heart, "Happy, Anger Heart?" he asked, smiling smugly.

Anger Heart sighed, "Alright, I guess a week to a month is fine," he said, "So what do I have to do."

"Well first," Love Heart said, closing his book as he knew what to do now from memory, "You need to learn to conjure mana."

"What's mana?" Defiant Heart asked.

"Well," Love Heart was concerned what he was going to say now might bore his "students" but what the hey, they were at least interested, "Mana is life force, it's part of a trinity that allows life to exist, along with the spirit and the body; if any of these things is lost life cannot exist."

"Like fire," Defiant Heart correctly guessed. Love Heart nodded, smiling, and Anger Heart moved back, crossing his arms somewhat nervously. "Reminds me of something from a video game I once played," Defiant Heart continued, "there were these things that could clamp onto creatures and suck something out of them that killed them, but it wasn't a fluid, now what was it?"

"Please, not now Defiant Heart," Love Heart said, steering the conversation back on topic. Love Heart held out his hands, "Yes, mana is needed for life but it is also used to cast magic." Love Heart produces a small amount of mana, it shimmered in a rainbow of colors floating above the palms of his hands.

Both Anger Heart and Defiant Heart were amazed, "Wow, that sure is something," Defiant Heart said.

"So how do we conjure this stuff anyway?" Anger Heart asked, his voice not laced with anger for once.

"Reach down inside and feel the energy within your body," Love Heart said, echoing his father's words.

Defiant Heart and Anger Heart looked at the bear, confused. "What are you talking about?" Anger Heart asked, his temper rising.

"Just close your eyes and listen to me," Love Heart said, starting to get irritated with the fox.

"Just listen to him," Defiant Heart said, elbowing the red fox, "if you want to learn magic just listen to him."

"Listen to you, telling me to follow directions, you who told every teacher to stuff it when they told you off for whatever you were doing at the time," Anger Heart retorted.

"Stop it you two," Love Heart said, letting the mana cloud dissipate, "If you don't pay attention now I'll stop trying to teach you two."

"All right fine," Anger Heart said.

The fox was about to continue when Love Heart cut him off, "Now close your eyes and search for a warmth or heat inside yourself." Both the badger and the fox, albeit with some reluctance, closed their eyes. Love Heart sighed, at least they were listening now, "It will be a warm sensation, not like heat but like something that makes you feel good and strong."

"I think I feel something," Defiant Heart said, squinching up his face as he searched for that feeling.

Despite his doubts, Anger Heart was doing the same thing, "I can feel a warmth, like some strange heat or something."

"That's it, now hold your hands out," Love Heart said, "and try to release that feeling through your hands."

Love Heart watched as Defiant Heart and Anger Heart struggle in their attempts. Finally a small simmering cloud appeared in Defiant Heart's hands, then a moment later the same thing happened in Anger Heart's hands. "There you two, go, look," Love Heart said, smiling.

Both the fox and badger opened their eyes and were amazed at the shimmering clouds of mana they were able to produce. "Wow," was all that Anger Heart Fox said.

"Cool," Defiant Heart added. Despite how impressed they were, the two animals soon found themselves beginning to tired, letting their arms fall to their sides as their mana clouds dissipated.

"That was exhausting," Defiant Heart said, panting for breath.

"Expelling mana is like exercising a muscle," Love Heart explained, once again echoing what Sage Heart had told him ten years ago, "you have to break it down, push its limits and then rest and eat while it restores itself. You'll have to do this every day until you feel tired until you can hold it for eight hours, then I'll move you on to the next part of your training."

Anger Heart tried to stand, but fell back into his seat. "Damn!" he said angrily, "this is tiring, I can barely move."

"All exercise is tiring, Anger Heart," Defiant Heart shot back, smirking at the fox, "so stop your complanin'."

"Yeah well," Anger Heart managed to lean forwards as he panted, "that means Love Heart here will have to do everything today. Especially since the washer is done," he said, turning to Love Heart as he heard the sound of the washing machine finished its load downstairs.

"Umm, right so how do I do that?" Love Heart asked.

"Go downstairs, you'll see two large machines, the one on the left is the washing machine the one on the right is the dryer. Go to the washer, take the clothes out, put them in the dryer, and push the button with the small line in a circle on it, twist the knob next to it until it clicks once then push the other button and it will start drying the clothes," Anger Heart looked up at Love Heart, his next words filled with contempt, "Think you can manage that?"

"Yes I can," Love Heart said, narrowing his eyes as he turned to go downstairs and change the laundry load.

After Love Heart was gone, Defiant Heart asked, "Did ya have ta be so insulting, I mean the guy is teaching us magic after all."

"Well he grew up in a cave, as far as I know he's just washed his clothes in a river up until now," Anger Heart explained, "and besides he left us like this so we won't be able to do much else today so he'd better take responsibility."

"I suppose what about supper?" Defiant Heart asked, "I mean it's not like you can cook us something again like last night, Chef Ramsey."

Anger Heart smiled as he considered the Chef Ramsey quip a compliment, "Eh, I'll just get him to order something. It may not be the healthiest thing but I can afford pretty much anything."

"So what were you thinking of?" Defiant Heat asked.

"Probably pizza for lunch and Indian food for supper," Anger Heart replied, "So what do you take on your pizza?"

"Well," it took Defiant Heart a moment to come up with some as Anger Heart had never really asked for his opinion on something seriously before, "I like peppers and veggie stuff on pizza, and Hawaiian."

"Blech," Anger Heart said in disgust, "I can't believe you take vegetables on your pizza."

"Hey, they're good," Defiant Heart defended his choice.

"Well I'll just order form a 2 for 1 place and get a large of what we both like, Love Heart can just pick and choose for himself," Anger Heart said. At that moment Love Heart came back upstairs, having successfully put the wet laundry in the dryer.

"Choose what for myself?" Love Heart asked, having heard the last few words of the conversation.

"Grab the phone and phonebook while you're over there," Anger Heart said. Love Heart stopped briefly and grabbed the phone and huge phonebook off the small table they had been set on. Love Heart set them next to the fox, "Thanks," was all he said as he flipped through the pages, finally stopping on the yellow pages in the pizza section. Finding a place he liked he dialed the number and held the phone up to his ear. When the man on the other end stopped his introduction, Anger Heart began his order.

"Yes, I'd like two large pizzas for delivery, one meat lovers and one with ham, mushrooms, green peppers and pineapples. Also give me three large pops, one cola, one lemon-lime and one root beer." Anger Heart rattled off his phone number to confirm the address and then hung up. "OK, the food will be here in about half an hour," he said.

"OK, sorry about the whole exhaustion thing, it hit me pretty hard the first time I conjured mana too," Love Heart said, sitting down between Anger Heart and Defiant Heart, "by the end of the week you'll get used to it, I hope."

"You hope?" Defiant Heart said, incredulously.

"Well I didn't get used to the energy drain stuff for a couple years but if the book is right you'll get used to it faster than I did and I can start teaching you your elements before the end of the month."

"'If?' 'hope?' there's a lot of guesswork in this Love Heart," Anger Heart said, irritably, "Are you sure this will work."

"No but I've never taught magic before and especially not in such a short time," Love Heart countered, "so just be patient and I'll make sure you're able to learn, it will be helpful."

'_And you'll need it too,'_ Love Heart thought to himself, _'when Dusk Heart shows up again, I want to make sure you can defend yourselves even if I'm not around.'_

Love Heart sighed with his thoughts and leaned back, picking up the remote control, "Well let's see what's on TV then," he said, flipping the machine on and checking the guide to see what was on.

Defiant Heart smiled. OK he was tired but he had made a couple new friends, heck a couple actual friends for what he remembered as his first time ever and with two animals like himself. Anger Heart, a fox he's argued and gotten into several physical fights with in school for the last few years and Love Heart, a bear he'd only met yesterday but had already given them these strange symbol on their tummies, new names and was even teaching them magic he had mastered. This was turning out to be very nice, much nicer then he was ever treated at home…


	9. Regina Arc, c5

Chapter 9: Mosaic

As Love Heart watched his two students train he noticed that what the book had said about the high speed training was true. When Love Heart had started his training at age 5 he had only been able to increase his mana generation time by a few minutes each day, but while Defiant Heart and Anger Heart had only bee able to hold their mana conjuring for about a minute on the first day, much like how Love Heart had started out, they were already up to half a hour on the second day, and over an hour on the third day. Love Heart was admittedly a little jealous of their progress. It had taken him five years to build up his mana reserves enough to even start his elemental training and here were these two, a 12 year old badge and a 12 year old fox, and they were expanding their abilities b y leaps and bounds. However Love Heart had to admit that the supposed trade off was worth it, and these two would tire much more quickly and more often then he would; Sage Heart had told Love Heart that he, and presumably other Care Bears like these two, had a natural affinity for magic and Love Heart's slightly earlier than normal training, starting mana buildup at age 5 instead of 6 and starting elemental training at age 10 instead of 12, meant he might actually have extremely high mana reserves more than enough to let him use magic whenever he wanted and in any amount he chose for any amount of time he wished.

Because the mana buildup training was very exhausting for Anger Heart and Defiant Heart, Love Heart learned how to do quite a few domestic chores while his students recovered. Doing laundry, sweeping and vacuuming were occupying much of his time as the badger and the fox had to concentrate on their magic training. Love Heart also learned to cook a few basic meals but most of the time they just ordered food from some place that was at least decently healthy. Love Heart had to admit he was learning a lot about the way life went in the technology driven world and skills that would definitely be of help to him later in life, but it was still not anything he really liked to do.

At the end of the week, Love Heart saw that Anger Heart and Defiant Heart had managed to reach their required eight hour mana conjuring period by the late evening without serious exhaustion.

"You two are doing really well," Love Heart commented that day, watching his first two students after their daily training was done, "tomorrow we can start with your elemental training."

"Ugg," Anger Heart groaned, "training training every day, I need a break!"

"Hey, if you want to learn magic you have to keep training," Love Heart said, a bit ticked.

"Hey, even you must have taken some breaks when you were training," Defiant Heart said leaning back where he sat, "Besides Mosaic is on right now."

"What's Mosaic?" Love Heart asked, relenting and deciding that it would be a good idea for them to relax for a day.

"It's a cultural festival," Defiant Heart explained as he stood up shakily, "Pavilions are set up all over the city, each from a different culture and showing off various themes, items, foods and arts of each culture."

"Yeah, I used to go every year," Anger Heart said. The fox was about to speak up again but stopped, deciding that he didn't want to say anything else.

"All right then, we'll go tomorrow," Love Heart said, yawning, "but for now I'm going to bed."

"What about supper?" Anger Heart demanded, trying to shoot to his feet, but stopping as he was still tired.

"He ate already, and I'd rather you made something instead of us ordering more junk food," Defiant Heart said, getting up then sitting down again, "or I why don't we just sleep here, I'm tired, it's late, and we can get something to eat in the morning eh?"

The badger turned to Anger Heart, but the fox had fallen back in his seat and had fallen asleep, "Well that takes care of that," Love Heart said, pulling out and unrolling his sleeping bag for the night, "See you in the morning."

"Yeah, good night," Defiant Heart reached over and pushed Anger Heart onto his side, so he wouldn't be sore in the morning, then lay down on the couch and fell asleep. Love Heart lay awake for a few minutes, reviewing the last week in his mind. Things hadn't really gone according to plan but he was satisfied, he was doing what Sage Heart wanted him too and despite all the arguments he was enjoying it. He mused on that as he slipped into sleep.

The next day after they had washed up and eaten Love Heart, Anger Heart and Defiant Heart headed for the bus stop near Anger Heart's house and got on the first bus that stopped there, got on, and sat down near the back, in the two seats that were facing each other.

"So, where exactly are we going?" Love Heart asked, staring out the window.

"Mosaic, specifically the Scottish pavilion," Defiant Heart explained, "We'll pick up a brochure over there and we'll head to each of the nearby pavilions and just see how the day goes."

"That's your plan for he whole day?" Anger Heart asked incredulously.

"Yes, is there a problem with that?" Defiant asked back. Anger Heart was about to reply, when he realized he had no good comeback available and so just sat in his seat brooding as they rode the bus.

Love Heart had to admit that Mosaic was more fun than he had initially thought it would be, learning about all the different cultures and seeing objects of art and heritage from them was very enlightening especially as he had not even been aware that so many different countries existed.

After they had gone through one of the Asian pavilions that Anger Heart reveled something he had purchased, a pair of small steel weapons that looked like small tridents with the middle prong longer than the other two but lacking any blades.

"What are those?" Defiant Heart asked, "and why did you buy them?"

"They're sai," Anger Heart said, twirling one in his hands, "And they're law enforcement weapons from the far-east, used to block and counter swords. I figured since we're going to be traveling sometime soon I should have some sort of weapon and I thought these looked awesome so I bought them."

"Well whatever floats your boat," Defiant Heart said, while thinking that he might want to get a weapon himself.

It was near the end of the day that the badger found himself staring into a glass display cabinet at something he thought would be perfect for him. A spear that could collapse and fold into a small non-threatening form resembling a few small metla poles lashed together, but the price point was far too much for him to afford.

Anger Heart, who had been wandering around the pavilion in boredom, noticed Defiant Heart staring at the weapon's display cabinet. Curious, the fox wandered over and stood next to Defiant Heart, looking at the same folding spear that he was.

"Found a weapon you want?" Anger Heart asked.

"Yeah, but why do you care?" Defiant Heart asked.

Anger Heart said nothing but walked over to the vendor in charge of the weapon's display, spoke to him for a moment, then handed him some money. The attendant then turned, went to the display cabinet, and took one of the folding spears which he handed to Anger Heart.

"Here," Anger Heart said, handing the folded spear to the badger, "don't mention it."

Defiant Heart was dumbstruck. Had Anger Heart really just bought him something that expensive without even asking for anything in return, "Thanks Anger Heart," the badger said.

"Ugg, I just said not to mention it!" the fox said, before turning and marching away. Defiant Heart couldn't help but smile, but held onto the folded spear as he went to look for something to eat.

Later that day, Love Heart, Anger Heart and Defiant Heart were sitting on a bench waiting for the bus. Defiant Heart looked at the other two and asked, "So are you two having fun?"

"Yeah, I guess," Anger Heart replied.

"I guess, but I'm not sure what to make of al of this stuff," Love Heart said.

"Don't worry about it," Anger Heart said as the bus pulled up and he stood up, "We got weapons we can use now and we're going for supper so just enjoy this for them moment."

"This from the guy who gets mad when he accidentally chews on a piece of cartilage he found in his chicken," Defiant Heart said as he and Love Heart got on the bus.

The following day Love Heart woke up first and decided to use his time to read on to the next part of the training involving elemental selection. At the bottom of one of the pages he found a small patch stuck to the page of the book. Curious, he removed it and held it in his hand.

"Hmm, this feels like my sword and the wallet my dad gave me," Love Heart said, "I wonder?" he began to channel mana into the small patch in his hand and a moment later is sprung into a small orb, one that Love Heart recognized as the orb he had used during his training to figure out what his element was.

A couple hours later after all three of them had washed and cleaned up. Love Heart resumed their magic training.

"OK, now you need to find out what element you're suited for," Love Heart said, "if you focus on learning that element your training will go much faster and more smoothly.

"And how are we supposed to figure that out?" Anger Heart asked sarcastically.

"With this," Love Heart tossed the elemental testing ball to Defiant Heart, who caught it.

"And what do I do with this?" the badger asked curiously, turning the sphere around in his hands.

"Just channel mana into it the same way you've been conjuring it up until now," Love Heart explained, "what happens inside the sphere will tell you what element you're most suited for."

"If you say so," Defiant Heart said, channeling his mana as Love Heart had taught him. A minute later, nothing had happened, apparently. The badger looked disappointed and Anger Heart couldn't help but make a snarky remark.

"I guess that ball's broken, that or the badger doesn't really have any skill for magic."

Love Heart and Defiant Heart glared at the fox but Love Heart decided not ro reply and instead asked, "How does the orb feel, Defiant Heart?"

"Feel, oh uh heavier," The badger lifted the orb up, yeah it did feel heavier.

"That means your element is strength," Love Heart said, sighing at Anger Heart.

"Strength, how the hell does he use strength?" Anger Heart asked, confused.

"Strength isn't conjured and manipulated like most other elements," Love Heart said, exasperated but resigned to having to explain this to his two students, "Mostly strength magic is used to enhance your own physical abilities, strength, speed, durability and with more training you can even strengthen objects and weapons you're holding," Love Heart stared up at the ceiling, "My dad once made a small wooden stick as strong as a steel bar to scare off some thugs."

"Huh, well let me see what I can do then." Anger Heart grabbed the orb from Defiant Heart's hand.

"Hey, watch it!" The badger said, glaring at the fox again.

"Make me!" Anger Heart retorted.

"Knock it off you two!" Love Heart said raising his voice a bit more than he probably should have.

Anger Heart just rolled his eyes, "Whatever, let's see what kind of magic I use."

"Fire, it's going to be fire," Defiant Heart said under his breath. Anger Heart channeled his mana into the orb and a moment later a small flame appeared inside the orb.

"Called it, totally called it!" Defiant Heart declared.

Anger Heart was still staring at the small fire burning inside the small orb, his eyes had widened and his was breathing heavily. "F-fire?" he said in disbelief.

"What, something wrong with fire?" Defiant Heart asked smugly.

The orb fell from Anger Heart's now trembling hands and he seemed to have trouble keeping his composure, "I need to get something to eat," Anger Heart said, standing up and heading to the kitchen.

"What was that all about?" Love Heart asked, retrieving the orb from where the fox had dropped it

"You've got me there," Defiant Heart replied, shrugging, "I've never seen Anger Heart act like that."

Meanwhile in the kitchen, Anger Heart was running water over and washing some carrots which he then began to eat, "Fire, why does it have to be fire?" he asked as he tried desperately to keep himself from shaking.


	10. Regina Arc, c6

Chapter 10: Afraid of Fire? Anger Heart's Past

Defiant Heart watched Anger Heart washing and eating the carrots. He'd never seen the fox scared before, he always put a strong face and whenever something dangerous confronted him, such as the gangs that had tried to kill him a couple times, he often just shot insults at whatever was scaring him before either walking away or kicking its ass. But this, this was something completely different.

Love Heart came over to stand next to Defiant Heart, watching the fox. "What's wrong with him?" the bear asked, concerned.

"Beats me," Defiant Heart shrugged, "I've never seen Anger Heart act like this before."

"You guys do realize that I'm standing right here," Anger Heart said a bit irritably, "and I can hear everything you're saying."

"Really, I'm shocked," Love Heart said, deadpan.

Defiant Heart sighed, "Well if you want us to stop watching you then just tell us what's wrong."

"I don't want to," the fox said as he finished the carrot he had been eating.

"Well do you want to keep learning magic?" Love Heart asked.

"Yes, but I'd just like to learn something other than fire," the fox said, looking away.

"If you do that it's going to take you a lot longer to even get started," Love Heart said, hoping to persuade the fox otherwise.

Anger Heart Fox didn't reply, not seeming to care. Then Defiant Heart Badger had an idea and asked, "Do you really want me to be better than you?"

"You're not better than me!" Anger Heart snapped.

"So you'll learn fire magic?" Love Heart asked, hopefully.

"Well umm," Anger Heart faltered again.

"What's wrong with fire, are you afraid of fire?" Defiant Heart asked. Anger Heart just stood there for a minute causing Defiant Heart to be taken aback, "You're afraid of fire? Since when?"

"You're not going to stop pestering me until I tell you, are you?" Anger Heart asked.

"Got that right," Love Heart replied.

"Fine then, the reason is-"

"Wait!" Defiant Heart said, interrupting the fox, "if you're going to tell us that, tell us your whole past, I've known you for a long time and I don't know a thing about your personal life or past."

"Ugg, fine, just don't interrupt me again," Anger Heart said heading towards the living room, "Let's go sit in the living room and I'll tell you everything if you promise to stop asking."

"Got it," Love Heart said as he, Defiant Heart and Anger Heart went to sit down so Anger Heart could tell his story.

"My grandparents used to live in a rural area, that's where they met my parents…" the fox began.

Alfred and Marian Kitun weren't old but they weren't young either, they were middle aged. They had met in University and had been able to pursue rather lucrative careers, Alfred as a carpenter and general handyman and Marian as a chef at a rather popular restaurant and both of them excelled at what they did. Both of them had been only children and due to medical complications they had been unable to have children. But despite all of that they were happy and with no expenses and good senses of self control they were actually quite wealthy, having substantial savings for their retirement even when they were both 45.

While the couple both had jobs in the city, their home was in a small house along a dirt road with a backyard that led into a forest. The house was a simple one story place with a small living room/dining room, a kitchen, a bedroom for the couple and a spare room with a single bed that was used only for company, of which they had almost none. Marian kept a garden in the back and their house was attached to a garage that also served as Alfred's workshop. When away from work they lived simple lives, and not much happened.

One day, however, that all changed. Marian was attending her garden early in the spring, tilling the soil and spreading compost from the previous year in preparation for planting as she had a day off of work while Alfred was in the city at his job. After getting the soil ready, Marian sat back, taking a break before she would plant, unwrapping a sandwich she had made earlier so she could eat outside, when her attention was caught by a flash of red from the trees of the woods behind her house followed by a snap and a yelp. Curious she got up to investigate and came across a small red fox, a young vixen with its left hind leg caught in what looked like a very old bear trap, left by some careless trapper before she moved in.

"Poor thing," she said, moving to try and help the fox, but she snapped at Marian, afraid but doing her best to be fierce. Marian backed off, then had an idea, she took the sandwich she had been about to eat and removed a slice of ham from between the bread, placing it near the fox's head. The vixen looked at her curiously but ventured a nibble on the meat; the taste was to her liking and she began to eat. Marian took the opportunity while the vixen was distracted to carefully pry the old trap off of her leg and to check the leg.

"Good, nothing's broken, that trap was so old it didn't do any real damage but it held you fast, didn't it?" she asked the vixen. The fox finished the meat and looked up at the human woman, why was this human helping her? The fox got up, tested its leg, then took off back into her home in the woods, pausing to look back at Marian for a moment.

"Go on, back to your family now," Marian said. The fox seemingly obeyed, turning and taking off into the woods. Marian smiled, "Well that was unexpected," she said, as she ate what was left of her sandwich, "but now I have some seeds to plant," she turned and headed back to her house to plant her garden. She could not have foreseen that that small act of kindness would have a lasting effect.

Later that day, at dinner, Marian and Alfred discussed their day. Alfred explained the work he'd done to set the foundation for a garage he was going to build this month, then asked Marian if anything interesting had happened.

"Now that you mention it," Marian said, "I met a fox today."

"Really?" Alfred was curious about this.

"Yes, she was caught by an old trap in the woods near our house," Marian explained, "I helped her get loose and fed her some ham."

"That was kind of you," Alfred complimented her, "Think you'll see her again?"

"I doubt it," Marian lamented, "foxes are afraid of humans and I doubt she'll come near our house again."

A few months later, in the summer, Marian was tending her garden and Alfred, having a day off, was helping her by weeding the garden. He gripped a particularly well dug in weed and pulled as hard as he could, finally falling back as it and its whole root came loose. "That's one less weed to bother your garden," he said, tossing it in the bucket they had set aside for weeds. Alfred looked up and saw two red blurs near the forest edge, "What's that?" he asked, peering into the forest's edge.

Marian followed her husband's gaze and saw two red foxes, she recognized one. "Why hello there, are you the same Vixen from before?" she asked. The two foxes, one a todd fox and the other the same vixen from before, edged closer looking at the human couple.

"I take it this is your little friend from before," Alfred said.

"Yes she is," Marian said, taking some of her lunch. Removing the meat she set it on the ground in front of them and let the foxes eat cautiously. "I see you found yourself a mate," she said, smiling. The vixen yipped as she finished her snack. The todd growled a bit, it was obvious that both foxes were quite young but they were friendly and didn't seem afraid of the two humans.

Alfred reached out to pet the todd, but it growled and he backed off, "I can't blame them for being cautious," he said.

"Well they came this far," Marian said. The two foxes looked at the human couple, then turned and dashed back to the forest. "I have a feeling we'll see them again," Marian replied.

And she was right, every year in the spring and summer and even in the autumn the two foxes would pay Marian and Alfred a visit. They would come up closer each time, eventually coming to sit on the deck as Marian gave them small scraps, not enough to spoil their appetite but enough to make them feel welcome. The two foxes had become temporary pets to the couple.

On the fifth year of this, on a cool spring morning, Marian was having a cup of coffee before she and Alfred went to work that day when something struck her. "Alfred, dear, have you noticed that our little fox friends have never brought any kits to us, I don't think I've ever seen any evidence that they have kits."

"Maybe it's a fate," Alfred said, as he bit into his toast, "They can't have kits just like we can't have children. They have been alive a lot longer than most foxes are in the wild. Who knows, maybe things will change someday."

"Maybe," Marian finished her coffee, "but we'll figure it out after work," she said, heading for the garage. Alfred finished his breakfast and followed her.

Time continued to pass and the two foxes continued to visit Alfred and Marian on a regular basis, but even though they survived predators and traps and disease, the two foxes were getting old, and they were showing it. On the ninth year of their visits they stopped leaving the house, too old to hunt and somehow having gotten attached to the human couple they had been visiting and were too old to stay safe in the wild much longer, they dug a small den under the back porch of the house and Marian and Alfred didn't mind.

Marian was sitting on the porch in the late autumn one day after having spent the whole day harvesting her garden. She too was getting old, 55 years old, and her hair was graying and she was getting wrinkled; Alfred too was looking older, his hairline wasn't receding but his hair was getting thinner overall, and he was starting to show the weariness of age. She looked down to see the two old foxes climbing out from under the deck, climbing up on the deck to sit next to her.

Alfred came out of the house, smiling at the two foxes, "All your vegetables are being refrigerated, Marian, it was a good harvest this year. I brought something for you two," he knelt down and placed two rather large pieces of meat in front of the foxes, both of which were gobbled up with a speed that Alfred had come to expect, it was near hibernation time and they needed all the food they could get.

"It's been a good year," Marian reached down and petted the vixen's head; she didn't move, not being scared of human touch anymore, "let's hope the winter isn't too long and cold, none of us are really young anymore."

"We've still got many years ahead of us, Marian," Alfred reassured her. He looked down sadly at the old foxes. Both he and Marian knew the foxes were quite venerable by fox standards, at least 10 years old each, which was very old for a fox as most only lived about two or three years owing to other predators or disease.

Marian stood up, "I'll bring out some more food for them, then I'm going to turn in," she said a bit sadly, heading for the kitchen.

Alfred nodded, "I'll help you, dear," he added his voice also tinged with sorrow, for all he knew this would be the last time he'd be able to feed those two foxes.

A short time later, Marian and Alfred retuned with two metal bowls full of food they had learned was food for foxes and set them down, watching the two foxes eat. They could leave the bowls outside, they were old and no one would ever take them so they weren't worried as they headed inside to bed. The two foxes ate then slowly retreated to their den to mate then to settle down for the long winter sleep.

Winter was as uneventful as usual for Alfred and Marian Kitun, the food was harvested from the garden and it was too cold for Alfred to take on many projects. Christmas came and went and it was as uneventful as ever. With no living relatives the couple had no reason to dress things up anymore, a wreath on the doorway, a small plastic tree and a small exchange of gifts between the two, nothing special, or at least that was the plan.

On Christmas Day, Marian felt like getting up early for a change and left the bed after pulling on her housecoat while Alfred was still sleeping. She poured her morning coffee and looked at the small tree set on the windowsill, a tiny touch that they only bothered with as an afterthought these days.

What was that sound? Marian was sure she heard was sounded like crying coming from somewhere. She looked around, thinking she was just hearing things, then she heard it again; it sounded like an infant and it was coming from out back.

Hurriedly, Marian pulled her boots on hurriedly and went out back, listening, and sure enough she heard crying, it was coming from beneath the deck. She hurried down the deck and peered underneath, and was shocked at what she saw. Both of her fox friends were there, lying very still, and between them was a young fox kit, but not a normal fox kit for one it was nearly as big as its parents; the kit wasn't the same ruddy red color as its parents instead it was a bright fiery red, the nose on the tip of its muzzle was heart shaped, there was a barely discernable red heart stamp on its rear and its bodily shape looked almost human. The infant fox took a deep breath and began bawling again, sounding just like a human child. Marian had to do something, so she reached out and carefully picked up the fox kit, unexpectedly the fox immediately snuggled against her, shivering as it let her body warm it up.

Marian hurried inside and sat down, looking down at the kit. It was clearly an infant male fox but it was almost human; she confirmed this when she looked at its hands a feet finding five toes on its feet and four fingers and an opposable thumb on each hand, it was something special no doubt. Marian stood up with the fox kit, which had stopped crying for now and was now asleep thanks to the warmth of her arms, and she walked carefully to her bedroom.

Alfred was still asleep when Marian shook him gently, "Alfred," she said excitedly, "Alfred wake up and look what I found outside under the deck."

Alfred rolled over and looked up at his wife. He started when he saw the kit and sat up sharply, "Marian, where did you find that?"

"I found him under the deck with our two fox friends, it must be their kit but look," Marian showed one of the tiny hands of the fox kit to her husband, showing him the four fingers and thumb on the hand, "its not a normal fox, Alfred, I think it's a present from our friends."

"You said they were under the deck, outside their den in winter," Alfred hurried out of bed, throwing on a warm sweater in addition to his sleeping pants and then hurried outside after pulling his boots on. He went under the deck and found the two foxes they had befriended lying where Marian had found them. He reached out and felt them, their bodies were cold and they weren't breathing. Alfred was no veterinarian but even he knew what had happened. She reached in and carefully retrieved the two dead foxes, carefully carrying them inside and placing them in a large old shoebox he had gotten his newest pair of boots in.

Marian came into the kitchen, which where the back door was, and asked, "are they?"

"Dead, Marian, his parents are dead. They were old foxes and the effort of bearing young at such an age must have been to much for them," he said mournfully, placing the lid on the box, "it should be impossible but they managed to have one child and it seems he's been left to our care. The ground is too hard right now but we'll bury them in the spring," Alfred said, walking over to the large deep freeze they had in the kitchen and setting the box with the two dead foxes in it inside.

The couple sat at the kitchen table looking at the sleeping cub and wondering what to do. Alfred was the first to speak, "We'll have to take him to a doctor, but a human doctor or an animal doctor?" he wondered.

"But what if someone takes him away?" Marian said, picking up the cub and holding it close.

"We'll just keep it under wraps, Doctor Phillips is a good man and he respects the doctor-patient confidentiality agreement," Alfred reminded her, as their new family doctor had been very good about respecting his oaths, and he was very good even though he was only in his mid 30s.

"I suppose," Marian said, still a bit unsure. She looked down at the kit, "He must be hungry," she said, suddenly concerned about how they would feed the kit.

"Don't worry," Alfred reassured her, standing up he went to the storage cupboard and pulled out a baby bottle. It was a bit old but it was still useable, "A joke gift from Jack at work," he said, chuckling, "but it looks like the jokes on him now." He went to the fridge and pulled out a jug of milk which he used to fill the bottle before securing the lid and passing it to Marian. They didn't have the materials to make formula but this would do for now. Marian carefully shook the kit and it opened its eyes but before it could start bawling again Marian pressed the rubber nipple of the bottle against its muzzle and the hungry fox kit clamped it jaw over the nipple and sucked it hungrily while grasping the bottle in its tiny hands.

"My he is hungry," Marian said, then she had a thought, "What should we name him."

"Name him?" Alfred was a bit taken aback.

"Yes," Marian said, looking down sweetly at the kit, "Our fox friends left him to us and we're going to raise him so he needs a name."

Alfred sighed, but smiled, "You're right, dear, now let's think," Alfred didn't have to think long before he suggested a name, "How about Alex, Alex Kitun."

"Alex, that's a nice name," Marian said. The kit had finished drinking so Marian lifted it over her shoulder and patted its rear, causing it to burp, then held it forwards as its eyes drooped and it began to fall asleep.

"Welcome to our family, Alex Kitun."

Alfred spent the rest of Christmas Day in the garage using some of the wood he had been accumulating to build a crib for Alex. It was late in the day when he finished and carried the crib to the spare room they had always intended to use as the room for their children, but had gone unused but maintained when they found they were not able to have children. Thankfully Alex was tired from crying all day and he fell asleep almost immediately letting the couple also go to sleep, happy that they had someone in their lives they could love and who would depend on them from now on.

The following day, the Kituns set out to their doctor with Marian holding Alex carefully, they'd need to get a car seat and a stroller among other things while they were in town today, taking care of a baby was something they lacked many materials for but they were ready to throw themselves into the responsibility wholeheartedly, but first they had to give Alex a medical exam from Doctor Philips.

Thankfully the office was empty for the day as it was early and on boxing day everyone was swarming the stores to take advantage of all the sales that big stores used to clear out their Christmas stockpiles. Doctor Philips was alone today, his receptionist had the day off, and he personally greeted the couple as they entered. Doctor Philips was quite a bit younger than Marian and Alfred but he had been their doctor for the last five years after their last doctor had retired.

"Good Morning, Alfred, Marian, what brings you to my office this morning?" he asked, surprised that anyone showed up today.

"Well it's something unusual," Alfred said.

Marian stepped forwards and lifted up the small kit in her arms. Doctor Philips started and stared at Alex, "What is that?" he asked, unsure of what to make of this situation.

"It's a long story," Marian said, "but I'd like you to give him an examination to make sure he's healthy."

"I'll do my best," Doctor Philips said as they set Alex on the exam table, "But I've never seen a creature like this before."

"Well it was either you or a veterinarian and we trust you to keep this between us until we get things settled," Alfred explained, sounding slightly worried, "We're not sure how or why Alex is like this, but we don't want to risk getting any scientists involved, just in case."

"Well I doubt that will happen, especially here it's not like men in black will swoop down and steal odd children right out from under their parent's noses, but I understand your concern," the Doctor said as he began to test Alex. The kit growled at the doctor but didn't try anything as the doctor tested his breathing and other autonomic reactions.

After a few minutes of testing, he stood back and said, "Well little Alex is perfectly healthy, for a human at any rate. There are some things I can't test but he likely has stronger senses of smell and hearing than any human I could name, keep an eye on that and bring him back for an exam in a few months or if there is any problems."

"Anything special that we should do?" Marian asked.

"Nothing you wouldn't do for any infant, he seems to be able to ingest human food without any complications, but make sure you pick up baby care materials before too long, diapers, formula, and other such things. Also he appears to be about 2 months old."

"That's why we came into town, thank you Doctor Philips," Alfred said, shaking the man's hand. They both left, grateful that, because they lived in Canada, they didn't have to pay for such a routine check up, but Alfred did take home registration forms to add Alex to their medical care account for future appointments.

While Alfred was filling the forms out in the car and watching Alex, Marian drove them to a store where they could get child care supplies. Marian returned about half an hour later with a shopping cart full of baby food, formula, diapers, and other items to help them take care of their new dependent. Alfred had finished the forms and helped his wife load them into the car, then they drove home happy that Alex was healthy.

Once at home Marian set about appeasing the now crying fox kit while Alfred set up and stored the various baby supplies, giving one of the diapers to Marian so Alex wouldn't have any accident, and then made sure everything was set up in Alex's room. It was late at night when Alex fell asleep giving the couple a chance for some well needed rest.

Time passed and little Alex was able to acclimate quite well despite being a fox in a human world. Marian and Alfred raised him as best they could and because of their age and because they weren't really his parents they insisted that Alex called them his grandparents.

For the most part, they kept Alex at or near the house for the first five years of his life, save for the times they took him in to get new clothes. Sadly no on his age lived near the house and there were no playgrounds nearby to speak of, so Alex only really had his grandparents to look after him. Fortunately while they had never had children before they had read up on the subject earlier in their marriage and remembered a fair amount of what to do, but even they struggled at times such as when Alex cried through the night for one week straight when he was teething; his teeth that had come in were mostly human, just with a few more canines than a human mouth would contain. The couple had cut back their working hours so one of them could be with Alex at all times of the day. While they weren't exactly rich, the were well off enough owing to their savings, self-control and a lack of children up to this point that they could have lived comfortably for likely the rest of their lives if they so wished, even if they had to care for Alex, but they still wanted to work to avoid suspicion and to keep building their savings so Alex would be able to support himself when the inevitable came…

The first big even came on Alex's first Christmas, which was thankfully not his birthday which had been in late October, and the first Christmas that Alfred and Marian had felt like actually celebrating in a long time, and they weren't going to take things lightly. Alfred went to a local tree vendor and got a big evergreen Christmas tree then went to get decorations at another nearby location while Marian began to prepare a dinner for the three of them, making Alex's food softer as his teeth were still new.

Alex watched as his grandfather set up the tree, sitting in his fuzzy light blue coveralls as he set the tree in a water bucker and began to decorate it. His grandmother, entered the room.

"Dear, let me help you with that," Marian insisted, moving to help Alfred as he strung lights around the tree.

"Wa tis?" Alex asked, staring at his grandparents, confused.

"It's a Christmas tree, Alex," Alfred explained, "We haven't had one in years but since you came along we felt you should experience a traditional Christmas."

"Cwismas?" Alex was even more confused.

"It's a special time of year when we spend time together," Marian replied, turning to their grandson, "we decorate the house, get a tree, and give each other presents."

"Pwesents!" Alex understood that word and looked up hopefully.

"Not right now you little scamp," Alfred teased the fox, "You'll have to wait three more days."

"Aww," Alex looked down, disappointed. Alfred just chuckled at his grandson's down expression and went to pick him up.

"Don't worry, there's a lot of fun stuff to do, Alex," he said, setting the fox closer to the tree and placing a box of plastic ornaments next to him, "Here, help me hang ornaments on the tree."

"Ok," Alex perked up again and began to grab ornaments and hanging them on the lower branches. Alfred had to stop him a couple times to show him how to hand the ornaments properly but overall Alex was having fun.

Christmas Day came and Alex was up early, he rattled the bars of his crib, not strong enough to climb out on his own. The rattling had the intended effect as a couple minutes later Marian entered his room and lifted him out of his bed.

"Good morning, Alex, and Merry Christmas," she said, hugging her fox grandson.

"Yay!" Alex said, hugging her back, "pwesents?" he asked as she began to carry him to the living room.

Marian chuckled, "Just be patient, Alex, we'll get there," she set him down in the living room, some distance from the tree, "Now I'll go get your grandfather, just wait there." Marian turned and left leaving Alex to sit there.

The red fox sat there huffily; the tree was too far away for him to get to by crawling, at least in time for him to get there. "No fair," he said, crossing his arms, as he didn't want to wait. He leaned forwards and began to crawl, but it was too slow and he heard his grandparents coming. Alex pushed upwards and managed to get himself into a standing position, at that moment, Alfred and Marian returned to the room outside Alex's line of sight. Seeing him standing they kept quiet just in case they disturbed the fox. Alex saw his goal and managed to take a step forwards shakily. He steadied himself and took a second step forwards. The elderly couple smiled as the fox slowly toddled forwards towards the tree, then stopped and dropped to a sitting position and grabbed one of the present where his name was clearly marked on the tag.

"Well done, Alex," the fox froze as he heard his grandfather's voice behind him.

"You're first steps," Marian came to sit down beside the fox, "I'm so proud of you," she smiled at Alex, "Don't worry, go ahead and open your gifts, you earned it."

"Thanks," Alex said, smiling as he began to tear off the wrapping paper.


	11. Regina Arc, c7

Chapter 11: Anger Growing Up

Time passed and little Alex kept growing up, learning to walk and talk properly under his parent's careful guidance. The time finally came for Alex to go to school, which was in the city. As expected Alex was nervous about going to school, especially so far away from home, and he stood at the bus stop with his grandparents, nervously holding their hands.

"I don't want to go," he said, as he saw the bus rounding the corner near their house.

"I know," Marian said, "I felt the same way when I first went to school."

"You did?" Alex was surprised, he'd never seen his grandparents scared of anything.

Alfred nodded, "We both were, everyone is nervous on their first day at school. A strange place with adults and children you've never seen before. But you'll be fine," Alfred ruffled the fox's headfur, "just try to make some friends."

"OK," Alex said half-heartedly as the bus pulled up. The door opened to reveal the bus driver and some voices from inside the bus. Alex looked to his grandparents, who ushered him onto the bus.

The driver, a man in his mid 30s, gave the fox an odd look and said, "Well you're certainly an odd one. Take a seat." Alex nodded and went to sit near the middle of the bus.

A boy sitting in the row on the other side of the bus looked at Alex curiously and asked, "Hi, why are you wearing that costume, aren't you hot?"

"It's not a costume," Alex replied.

"Are you some kind of robot?" the boy got up and moved to sit next to Alex.

"No, I'm not a robot," Alex replied.

The boy poked him and Alex glared at him as he asked, "What are you?"

"I'm a fox OK?" Alex said, his voice carrying a sharper tone and he gritted his teeth.

"But foxes can't talk, or walk and-"

"Stop asking I don't know!" Alex shouted, causing the boy to recoil. Not wanting to put up with any more questions Alex got up and stormed to the front of the moving bus, only to fall flat on his face when the bus suddenly stopped. Alex pushed himself up as a girl got on the bus and stopped to stare at him.

"A fox?" she asked.

"Yes, I'm a fox," Alex said, not wanting to have to put up with another questionnaire, he glared at the girl who was more timid that the boy from earlier and went to sit at the back of the bus. Alex sat down right in front of the door stairs and crossed his arms, brooding. If these questions continued he was not going to have a happy time at school.

As the bus continued on its route more children got on and each of them stopped to stare at Alex or to ask him some variation on what he was, if he was in costume, a robot, or something else the fox considered to be stupid question, each one making him angrier until he just growled at the students to force them to move on without any questions.

When they finally stopped at the school, Alex was the first off the bus, wanting to be in the building as fast as possible. He checked the room assignment sheet he had been given and headed for the morning kindergarten room, moving faster than he probably should have.

Alex was first to the kindergarten room, startling the teacher when he entered, panting a bit from his forced march. "Oh my," the teacher, a young woman, said, "you are."

"Alex Kitun," Alex replied, waiting on the inevitable question barrage.

"Alex, well," the teacher checked her log book, "I'm Ms. Anderson. I was told you were an unusual child but I wasn't expecting a fox." Ms. Anderson smiled, "well as long as you're here to learn, just take a seat," she indicated the floor in front of the chalkboard. Alex sat down as the other morning kindergarten students entered. Some of them stopped to stare at the red fox, but Ms. Anderson ushered them to sit down, not wanting anything to make anyone feel uncomfortable.

When everyone was seated, Ms. Anderson went to the chalkboard and wrote her name in big letter, "Good morning, children, my name is Ms. Anderson and I will be your teacher. She looked at the children in her kindergarten room and made sure she had their undivided attention before continuing, "Welcome to Kindergarten, there is another class this afternoon but until lunch time you're with me." She picked up a small binder, "Now when I call your name please tell me if you're here." Ms. Anderson read the list, getting a long list of "heres" and "presents" from the children. About midway through she said, "Alex Kitun?" despite knowing he was there, as she had to follow procedure for now at least.

There was a brief pause, then the red fox raised his hand, "I'm here," he said, anticipating the worst.

Everyone turned to stare at Alex, some just sat there, slack jawed and one asked, "Why is there a fox in here?"

"Class, class!" Ms. Anderson had to shout to get their attention back to her, "Yes, Alex is a fox, but everyone here is unique, some more than others, and he is here to learn and make friends like the rest of you. Now then," She returned to her list and continued until everyone was here. Smiling, Ms. Anderson set the book down and went over the classroom rules with everyone, no hitting, name calling, sharing, the usual things that Kindergarten teachers expected their students to follow.

"Now then, feel free to explore the class and find something fun to do," Ms. Anderson said, encouraging them to stand up and explore. Alex looked around and went for an area full of building toys, interlinking blocks and the like. Most of the toys he had at home were just baby toys he'd had since he was an infant so these toys were new to him. He picked up a handful or little cubes, each with a nub on one side and holes on the other five, and began to experiment with putting them together. As he played a couple more kids joined him and one of them looked at what Alex was making then asked the first question that day that didn't enrage the fox.

"What are you making?"

"I don't know yet," Alex responded truthfully as he continued to stick the blocks together, "I'm just seeing what I can make."

"OK," the other kid replied, taking another kind of stick together building toy and starting to craft something of his own.

Eventually lunch time came and it was time for Alex and the rest of the morning kindergarten class to head home for the day. Alex found his bus which was marked with a big 5, the same number as the bus that had picked him up, and went to sit in the front seat, the same seat he'd been in on the way home. The bus driver recognized Alex and greeted him.

"Hi, fox, good first day at school?" he asked.

"My name is Alex," Alex said, a bit huffily.

"Well as long as you had a good day," the driver said, "I'll be picking you up every day for quite a while now."

Alex just nodded and sat there, avoiding the odd looks of the few class-mates of his that took the same bus as they boarded. So far no one had paid him any real mind beyond a first glance, no bullies yet as kindergarteners were off limits for that both due to teacher supervision and some unspoken code the older kids followed.

Alex arrived at the bus stop near his house to see his grandmother waiting for him. Alex rushed to meet her and hugged her as she crouched down. "Hi Grandma!" he said, happily.

"Welcome home, Alex, now let's go get some lunch," Marian said, smiling as she took her adopted grandson's hand and led him to a restaurant she knew he liked.

Once they had sat down and ordered, Marian began speaking, "So, how was your first day at school?" she asked curiously.

"It was fine," Alex said, "the kids all looked at me funny."

"I expected they would," Marian admitted, "but you'll get used to it. Just be friendly to them and they will come around."

"OK, grandma," Alex said as the food arrived. He dug in not sure of what his Grandma had said, but he'd have to give it a chance for now.

Kindergarten was a mostly uneventful stage in Alex's life, he did his best to make friends and while the other kids accepted him, they also irritated Alex with questions that he didn't want to put up with, mostly about if his parents were foxes too, or if he ever got hot with all the fur he had, or if he could stand to walk without shoes. Alex kept bottling it up inside, knowing he shouldn't take out his anger on his students but it got harder each day; it was a good thing he only was at school until lunch time five days a week.

Eventually Alex finished his year in Kindergarten and it was time to move on to the first grade. Late in summer, Alfred and Marian took Alex shopping for school supplies. As they walked down the aisle Alex noticed that they were looking for a lot more than he had needed for Kindergarten and asked, "Grandma, Grandpa, why do I need so much stuff to go back to school."

"Because, dear," Marian explained, "Kindergarten was to help you get used to spending your days with others your own age, in the first grade you start having to learn a lot more and spend most of your time on school work."

"Aww," Alex sounded dejected.

"Don't worry, my boy," Alfred reassured his grandson, stopping to grab a package of loose-leaf paper, "It won't be so bad, but you will have to be at school all day from now on and not just in the morning."

"OK," Alex didn't sound too happy but he had nothing else to say as they headed for the check out to pay for his supplies.

The time for Alex to enter first grade eventually came and once again he got on the bus that came by to pick him up. The ride to school was as it usually was, Alex got some odd looks from new morning kindergarteners but they said nothing, especially if Alex growled slightly.

After getting his room assignment, Alex took note of the various differences between first grade and kindergarten. First and foremost the classroom was much more organized, there were rows and columns of desks, 30 in a 5x6 configuration, the chalkboard was larger, and there were only a small number of toys.

"Guess grandpa was right when he said this would be all about work," he said as he found a desk to sit in. The rest of his classmates entered the classroom, leaving only three desks unfilled; Alex recognized about half of them from his kindergarten class and the others he assumed were from the afternoon class he had never met until now. One boy with black hair and eyes of two different colors, his left one was green and his right one blue, got his attention, and stared at Alex for a moment.

"What's a fox doing in school?" he asked.

"My name is Alex, and I'm a kid just like you!" Alex snapped at him, "I'm here for the same reason you are."

"Alright take your seats," the voice came from a male teacher who had just entered the room, "My name is Mr. Darrent and I will be your first grade teacher." As the teacher sat at his desk and everyone else sat down, the boy who had called out Alex sitting in the seat next to him. "Now," Mr. Darrent continued, "first I need to make clear that first grade is much different than kindergarten. You are here to learn, not to play, and you're going to have to follow a schedule that I will set forth tomorrow," the class seemed rigid but then Mr. Darrent smiled and sat back, "but for today we're not going to do too much, you need to get to know each other. Also you should remember where you're sitting now, that will be your seat for the rest of the year. Now before anything else, let's take role call," Mr. Darrent produced an attendance binder and began reading off names. Just like in Kindergarten on the first day, when Alex's name was called half the class looked at him funny, those who hadn't seen him every day in kindergarten last year. The black haired boy just smiled at Alex somewhat smugly.

Mr. Darrent kept reading the role call, which informed Alex of the boy's name, Daniel. Alex decided he'd have to remember his name, for some reason he seemed like trouble. The rest of the day was uneventful as the class got their supplies and put them away in their desks, and did some basic but not serious work. Recess was short and mostly uneventful, Alex explored the play structures he hadn't had access to in Kindergarten and avoided the older kids, not wanting trouble at the moment.

Lunch time came and for the first time he could remember, Alex was eating a bag lunch alone in the school lunchroom. A salami and cheese sandwich, a small bag of carrot sticks, and a juice box. He sat there eating when Daniel came to sit across form him.

"So how's school for you foxie?" the boy asked.

"It's fine, Daniel, and my name is Alex," the fox replied, his eye twitching slightly.

"So why are you here, they kick you out of the zoo?" Daniel asked mockingly.

"I was never in a zoo!" Alex said, his voice raising.

"Really are you sure about that?" Daniel asked. Alex got up and stormed out of the lunch room, powering down his lunch as he headed for the outdoors, as he had been instructed to do when he was done eating. Daniel just shrugged and went to finish his lunch.

When Alex got home that day he was a bit quiet. His grandmother Marian was home and noticed his silence.

"How was school?" she asked, concerned.

"It was fine," Alex said, "I met a kid in class called Daniel, I don't like him."

"Well maybe you should give him a chance, Alex," Marian said, trying to encourage him.

"OK, grandma," Alex said. He didn't want to voice his real opinion on Daniel, mostly because he was still trying to figure out how to put it into words.

For the next two weeks things got harder for Alex, as actual school work began and he learned about homework, schoolwork he had to take home at the end of the school day and that he had to turn in to his teacher, usually by the next day. Marian and Alfred explained that Alex would have to get used to doing homework; Alex didn't like it but he knew they were right.

Things between Alex and Daniel finally came to a head on the third Friday of their school year. During afternoon recess, Alex was trying to decide what to do when he heard a familiar voice coming nearby.

"Hey, foxie!" it was Daniel. Alex gritted his teeth, he was getting really sick of that taunt.

"What do you want!" Alex said loudly as he rounded n Daniel, who was right in his face by this point.

"Oh just to see how the school freak is do-" a moment later, Daniel was flat on his back with a bloody nose.

Alex had punched him square in the nose, "Shut up!" Alex shouted, having finally had enough of him.

Daniel wiped his nose and stood up, "You're gonna get it freak boy!" Daniel threw a punch at Alex, hitting him in the stomach. Alex staggered back, clutching his gut, then glared angrily at Daniel and tackled him.

Nearby students stopped to watch the fight, as the fox and the odd eyed boy punched, kicked, wrestled and scratched at each other; Alex even tried to bit him a couple times, but didn't connect. Two playground supervisors were alerted to this fight and made their way to the two fighting boys, each grabbing one and pulling them apart.

"Stop it you two," the female of the two said, holding Alex.

"You'll have to some with us," the male supervisor said, holding onto Daniel. Both boys were still struggling to get at each other until the supervisors dragged them inside as the recess bell rang.

Alex and Daniel were taken to the Principal's office, the principal was a fairly old man named Mr. Dennison and he looked at the boys and shook his head in dismay.

"I expected better of the students at my school, fighting like that is unacceptable. Do you two have anything to say for yourselves?" He waited for a moment, the two boys looks at each other than back forwards. Mr. Dennison sighed, "Alright I guess I'll have to call your parents, you two will wait here until they get here, and you need to have some time to think about what you've done." Alex suddenly felt livid, his mouth was dry and he found a lump of emotion in his throat, however Daniel didn't seem phased by the announcement. Mr. Dennison stood up and led the two boys to a pair of small rooms on either side of the office. These had been planned to be closets but hadn't been completed and now the principal used them to discipline students. Each room had a single bare bulb light fixture and a lunchroom chair and Mr. Dennison put Alex in one room and Daniel in the other across the room and locked them in. The purpose of this was for when two students who had been fighting had to be held until parents arrived and would keep them from trading blows, physical or verbal, thus giving them time to consider their actions.

Alex sat shuddering, dreading what his grandparents would say when they found out. Daniel on the other hand wasn't scared, he figured his parents wouldn't even show up and if they did they would just do so for the sake of seeing this through, say something to him and leave without any long term consequences, but at least they would say something to him at all.

It was an hour before Marian, Alfred, and Daniel's parents arrived at the school. Alfred and Marian were there about 10 minutes before Daniel's parents. When Daniel's parents arrived, Marian and Alfred noted that they seemed to be rather wealthy, dressed for financial success as it were; they didn't seem phased by the fact that they were called into school, a comment his father made seemed to indicate that he was more concerned about missing any business changes than he was about his son's actions in school.

Alex and Daniel were left to stew while Mr. Dennison met with their parents and explained what was going on. Alex could hear them talking and he was nervous; he didn't want to disappoint his grandparents and he wasn't sure what would follow.

A few minutes passed and the voices stopped and a moment later the door in front of Alex opened. Mr. Dennison stood there with his grandparents. "You can go with your grandparents now, they will decide your punishment this time but if you're caught fighting again you'll be disciplined by the school instead, do you understand."

Alex nodded, unable to speak, and got up. Marian and Alfred took their grandson's hand, but Alex couldn't bring himself to look into their faces as they led him away. He caught a look at Daniel, who surprisingly seemed pleased with himself, his parents giving him some harsh words but oddly nothing else.

Alex sat in the middle of the backseat on the ride home, but couldn't say anything. Upon arriving at home Alfred told Alex to go to sit at the kitchen table. A moment later they joined him.

"Alex, I'm disappointed in you," Alfred said, "I know you have a temper but you should have stayed in control."

"I'm sorry…" was all Alex could say.

"We discussed it and we decided that you should pick what your punishment should be," Marian said, "Either you can be grounded for a month, no TV or anything other than homework and books, but not comics," Alex's look sank even lower, "Or you can spend some time with your grandfather and myself for the next week and learn ways to put your energy elsewhere."

"I want to spend time with you," Alex said, it was the only real choice he had.

"Good," Alfred stood up, "Then I have some things to teach you in the garage today." Alfred led his grandson to the garage and flipped on the lights, there were piles of wood, a table saw, and a bunch of other woodworking tools. Alex's shame evaporated as Alfred spoke up, "I'll teach you woodworking and carpentry, now let's get started."

Alex spent the rest of the day until supper learning the basics of woodworking, he found he had a knack for it, once he learned the safety processes for using the power tools he began to enjoy himself. At supper he ate fast, his spirits heightened but not sure what he would be doing with his grandmother. After supper when the dishwasher was running, Marian took him to the kitchen.

"I bet you'd like some dessert," she said to her fox grandson.

"Yes," Alex replied.

"Good, because I'm going to teach you how to make some," Marian said, "Saskatoon berry pie, and if we're fast it will be ready before bedtime."

"OK," Alex was enthralled. He listened to what his grandmother said and helped her make the pie in question. Alex was happy indeed; instead of punishment he was being taught new skills by his grandparents. The week that followed saw Alex learning a lot, he spent his after school time either with Alfred learning more carpentry skills, or Marian learning how to cook.

Curiously, Daniel was absent the entire week from school, perhaps his parents had punished him and kept him at home as no one could remember seeing him in or out of school. However Alex didn't really care, he didn't want to speak with Daniel at all, but he could live with him or without him. Even after the week ended, Alex had grown to love carpentry and cooking so much that even though he was no longer being "punished" he continued to learn from his grandparents and decided that he would continue to do so as long as he could.

The next Monday Alex got a very odd surprise. As he stepped off the bus and made his way to the door he heard someone shouting his name quite angrily.

"ALEX!" the fox turned just in time to see a black and white striped blurr charge at and tackle him to the ground, "YOU DID THIS TO ME!" the male voice from the creature, as it punched him in the face. Thankfully whatever it was didn't go any farther as a playground supervisor had come over and pulled the thing that tackled Alex off, holding it up. Alex got a good look at it and saw it was a young male badger that looked like him, with a heart shaped nose but having the normal colors for a badger.

The supervisor had seen the whole thing, and also saw that Alex hadn't done anything to provoke the attack nor had he had a chance to throw a punch so he said, "Alright, you badger boy, who are you and what are you doing?"

"It's me, Daniel!" the badger raged, "and that fox did this to me, he turned me into this thing!" he pointed at Alex accusingly from where he was hanging."

"Well if that's true then you have a lot to tell us about, you've been absent for a week and the first thing you do on your return is to attack a fellow student. Don't worry Alex, I saw that you didn't do anything, go to your home room. As for you, you're coming to see the principal!" The supervisor walked away, dragging the still struggling badger with him.

Things had gone so fast that Alex hadn't had a chance to say anything, as he stood up and dusted himself off, checking for a bloody nose he said, "What was that all about," before running inside as the last bell rang. He made it to home room just in time, thankfully Mr. Darrent had heard what happened on the playground and didn't say anything to Alex as he took his seat.

The badger wasn't seen for the rest of the day and everyone was talking about the event when they weren't busy with lessons. At lunch Alex suddenly found himself the centre of attention as word had gotten around about the badger who claimed to be Daniel. Everyone was asking if Alex had done something or if he knew the odd badger. Alex told them all the truth, he had no idea why the badger had attacked him or even if he was Daniel like he claimed.

It was during the afternoon that the principal, Mr. Dennison, came to Alex's class, excusing himself to Mr. Darrent before he addressed the class.

"I'm sorry to interrupt your lessons today but I have something to tell all of you," Mr. Dennison said, "Because of his assault on Alex this morning and some rather choice words he gave to me when he was brought into my office this morning Daniel has been expelled from this school. To put things simply he won't be in your class anymore and you won't see him around the school again. He will be attending another school in the city. Thank you for your time," as he said the last phrase, Mr. Dennison left without taking any questions.

For a moment everyone in the room stared at Alex, but then Mr. Darrent clapped his hands. "Well, Daniel will be no longer in this class, but let's get back to work. Now…"

The stares on him for the rest of the period were making Alex quite uncomfortable and he was dreading recess since now everyone knew that the badger had been Daniel. Sure enough when recess came he was swarmed by students not only from his class but others who had known Daniel and witnessed the scene earlier that morning who kept asking him the same questions.

"What did you do to him?"

"How did you do it?"

"Will you do it again?"

"Why did that happen?"

"I DON'T KNOW!" Alex shouted angrily over the questions, "HE WAS JUST LIKE THAT TODAY I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING! LEAVE ME ALONE!" with the last outburst Alex took off to get away from them running until he got near the door back into the school and sat down against the wall until the bell rang and recess ended.

The last hour of class time passed uneventfully for Alex and as usual he got on the bus at the front near the driver, which he had learned that students tended to avoid because they weren't able to get away with much. Alex growled harshly at each student who walked past him dissuading them from asking any questions; this approach seemed to work as no one asked him about Daniel on the ride home.

During supper that night, Alex's grandparents noticed that he was being oddly quiet and they asked him about it. Alex sighed and told them about the badger that had attacked him, that the badger was apparently Daniel, how Daniel had been expelled, and how he'd been bombarded with questions by every student who had seen him at recess.

"So what do you think happened?" Alfred asked, curious.

"I don't know," Alex said, "I'm tired, can I go to bed now?"

"Of course," Marian said, deciding that it was best not to pry as the fox got up and headed for his room.

"What do you think happened?" Alfred asked his wife as he got up to help her do the dishes.

"I honestly don't know," Marian admitted as she ran the hot water in the sink, "But I don't think he's lying about the badger. I think we should leave it be unless something happens again."

"Alright," Alfred agreed, "I guess there's not much else to do anyway."

For Alex things gradually returned to normal, a few weeks after the incident people stopped asking about Daniel. Despite that, Alex remained irritable whenever someone asked him a question other than teachers, though everyone noticed how he was easily irritated. However other than that, Alex's life was normal, he got good grades but didn't really make any friends as everyone in his core class remained apprehensive about the incident involving Daniel, which only served to infuriate Alex more.

It wasn't until Alex was in the seventh grade and on a field trip involving several elementary schools of the city at the start of spring that year that Alex ran into Daniel again.

It was a nature field trip, observing the way that nature changed in spring, and Alex couldn't have been more bored as he filled out the forms they had to fill out on the field trip with the stuff he'd been taught by his grandparents a long time ago. It was while he was doing this that he heard someone calling to him.

"Hey, Alex, long time no see!" The fox looked up and saw the speaker, groaning aloud as he approached.

"Oh no, not you," Alex groaned. The speaker was the badger who had claimed to be Daniel and this was the first time he'd seen him in six years. Honestly, it could never be long enough for Alex, "So what are you going to do, tackle me and try to kill me again!" he asked, a bit harshly."

"If I wanted to do that I wouldn't have bothered saying hey first," the badger said.

"Right, so what do you want?" Alex asked, still none too convinced.

"Just to talk for a while, since we haven't seen each other since…"

"Since you attacked me back in the first grade and blamed me for you being a badger," Alex finished the badger's sentence cynically.

"Yeah," the badger didn't seem to be either sorry or regretful, not that it would have mattered to Alex.

"So who are you really?" Alex asked, still skeptical.

"I am Daniel," he said.

"Oh really, last I checked, Daniel was human not a badger," Alex said.

"Yeah well the night after we got into that fight while I was still human I had a strange dream," the badger explained, "he said to me that my desperate pleas for attention had gone too far when I provoked the fight with you and that I had to learn a lesson and hopefully adapt to a new situation." The badger sighed, "When I woke up the next day, I looked like this," he held up his hands.

"So what did your parents say?" Alex asked, intrigued.

"HA!" Daniel's laugh of contempt was audible and a few people turned to stare, "My parents didn't even notice I'd changed overnight so I ran away for a week."

"Huh, so that's why I didn't see you for a week," Alex said to himself.

Daniel continued as though Alex had not spoken, "That week was a pain. I spent most of it hiding from people because they all thought I was either cute or a freak. And here's the cherry on top, when I finally returned home my workaholic parents just greeted me as though I'd gone out for a short walk, they didn't even notice I was gone!" Daniel laughed sarcastically then turned to Alex.

"And your point is?" Alex asked, quite ticked at having to listen to Daniel's bellyaching, "You know what, I don't give a shit about your problems, Daniels. You've always treated me like garbage, teasing and annoying me until we got into a fight then attacking me when you came back from being missing for a week. So your parents ignore you, big whoop, and now you look like another animal like me so suck it up and leave me alone!" Alex turned and stormed away.

Daniel stood there, a bit stunned by his reaction but then sighed. Honestly he had expected that and he'd managed to survive five years as a badger, at least now people noticed him more often even if his parents still didn't care one way or the other. He might as well finish the field trip assignment.


End file.
